


Twilight Perfected

by JamesFirecat



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama, F/M, Humor, Slow Burn, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:36:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 67,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24880138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JamesFirecat/pseuds/JamesFirecat
Summary: A general who only wants to make up for his past mistakes, a science experiment who only wants to be a hero, a bar owner who only wants to get back what Shinra took from her, a coal miner who only wants to build a better world, and a flower girl who only wants to make people happy.  Individually they’re nothing more then pebbles in Shinra’s shoe.  Together… they could be an Avalanche.Eventually Aerith/Sephiroth.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Sephiroth
Comments: 58
Kudos: 109





	1. Well, I know what I've been told, you gotta work to feed the soul, but I can't do this all on my own.  No, I know, I'm no Superman.

AN: This story will be borrowing some visual elements from the remake (Reno’s tattoos) and possibly some bits of characterization or side quests to add more flavor/depth, but at the end of the day this is still going to be an AU based on the original game without any of the remake’s plot twists being present.

[Start Chapter]

Reeve Tuesti was one of the seven richest men on the Planet. Countless people envied the wealth and power that came with his position as the head of Shinra’s Urban Development Department. Reeve Tuesti envied those countless people, because they were blissfully ignorant of how the world truly worked.

Those people could insist to themselves that life was, if not fair, at least sane. That people like Reeve (who had so much money that he could hire someone to think of ludicrous metaphors for exactly what he could do with it) were so financially blessed because they’d been born smarter or worked harder than everyone else.

Reeve knew better, and it was that knowledge which made him dread moments like this. Even the fact that it was happening late in the day so that a more sensible person could simply go home once the horrific event had concluded didn’t help.

It was time for the Shinra ‘07 third quarter review. 

Like every quarterly review for over five years straight Reeve was the last person to arrive and quietly took a seat at the large conference table. He tried not to look at the woman who was seated to his right, and he especially tried not to look to the man seated on his left. 

He also tried not to look at either of the two people who were seated across from him. He tried not to think about the man who saw the people of this city not as customers but enemy combatants. He tried not to think about the man who now was the head of a ‘department’ which existed only on paper. He tried to imagine that the meeting was already over and he could just go back to his desk.

Alas, before the meeting could even officially start, one of his coworkers gleefully rose to their feet, unable to contain their joy.

“Good news everyone!” Announced Professor Simon Hojo, his joyful tones somehow even more off putting than the detached and unconcerned air he would normally approach office politics with.

“Project Second Silver has finally had a major success! After years of dismal failures, I’d like to present to you my latest scientific triumph, Kadaj!” Hojo boasted as he tapped a few keys into his seat’s terminal.

Moments later a monitor in front of every department head flared to life. It revealed the image of a young man who looked to be in his late teens wearing a black outfit. He had silver hair that was cut short in the back but in front was long enough to dangle across his face. His green eyes seemed to glow with a strange inner light, and as the camera drew closer their pupils suddenly contracted into vertical slits. The moment that this change took place Hojo paused the video.

“What exactly are we looking at?” Blustered Heidegger as he gazed at his screen almost as intently as Kadaj was gazing into the camera recording him.

“While I’ll admit that the Investigation Sector of the General Affairs Department has kept me more than amply supplied with test subjects, even my brilliance was stymied at every turn as I attempted to discover a way to elevate their bodies to the heights of our lamentably fallen General Sephiroth. Eventually I realized that such greatness could simply not be thrust upon those who never came close to being worthy of it. Instead, I decided to simply start from scratch and build a receptacle for Sephiroth’s genes that had been designed with them in mind from the very start.” Hojo explained.

“If you started from scratch then why are we looking at a young man rather than a baby?” Scarlet pointed out the obvious contradiction.

“You are familiar with the ability of Jenova cells to replicate at a far quicker pace than human ones are you not, my dear? While Sephiroth was undoubtedly second only to the invention of the mako reactor in helping the Shinra Electric Power Company achieve greatness, I will be the first to admit he had his flaws. I think we can all agree that he spent the entire first decade of his life contributing practically nothing of value to our organization.” Hojo scoffed dismissively. 

Reeve had to resist the urge to wince, it was an urge he’d gotten impossibly good at resisting, because these quarterly review meetings never failed to give him more chances to practice.

“Human reproduction is such an unnecessarily protracted and messy affair. When it came to Kadaj’s creation I was able to take advantage of Jenova cell’s astounding reproductive rate in order to induce artificial aging. My newest creation is only a few months old, and yet already physically capable of being deployed to the field.” Shinra’s top scientist boasted.

“At the moment all I see is a pretty silver haired toy. Can you prove to me that he has what it takes to be a soldier and not just a SOLDIER?” Heidegger demanded.

Hojo’s face fell slightly and he returned his attention to the terminal in front of him.

“Gentlemen, while I may seem to work miracles, I must remind you I’m a scientist, not a magician and certainly not some kind of daycare matron. That is why I’ve handed the task of raising Kadaj over to some of my subordinates, though of course only after providing them with ample instructions for how best to go about it.” Hojo insisted as he tapped a few more keys.

The video resumed, zooming out to once again show Kadaj’s entire face, and a female voice could be heard speaking.

“How are you feeling today, Kadaj?” It asked in the sort of sweet sing-song voice that women tended to favor when addressing young children.

Kadaj smiled.

If Reeve had been a man less practiced at hiding his feelings he would have jerked backwards in shock. Thanks to the overly clinical terms that Hojo favored, Reeve had allowed himself to be lulled into thinking of Kadaj as just a younger, smaller Sephiroth. 

Though Reeve had been far from the closest confidant of Shinra’s most famous general, it was impossible for him to imagine Sephiroth ever smiling with the sort of relaxed innocent air that Kadaj now displayed.

“I feel great!” The young man beamed, his teeth almost as bright as his hair.

“That’s good because you’re going to be taking a test today...” The female voice said.

The smile vanished in an instant.

“What kind of test? What happens if I fail?” Kadaj’s tone wasn’t exactly sullen or plaintive, but it was wary, the vocal equivalent of a wild animal pacing at the edge of a campfire wondering if it should risk coming any closer.

“There’s no way to fail this test. In fact, it is more like a game; I say a word and then you say the first word it makes you think of. To start with, light…?”

“Bulb.”

“On?”

“Off.”

“Mako?”

“Power.”

“Shinra?”

“Power.”

“Power?”

“Protects.”

“Family?”

“Reunion.”

“Sword?”

“Shiny.”

“Gun?”

“Loud.”

“Cat?”

“Kitty! No wait, purr!”

At this point in the back and forth Hojo stopped the video.

“Really? That is what you expect to be the next Sephiroth?” For some reason the head of Shinra’s Public Safety Department was unimpressed.

Hojo pushed more buttons and the video shifted to a new scene. 

This clip depicted the young man armed with one of the most bizarre weapons Reeve had ever seen; it was like someone had decided to attach two sword blades parallel to each other on the same hilt.

Kadaj was walking into what seemed to be some kind of combat arena and waiting for him were several of Shinra’s most recent robotic creations. Kadaj had seemed more nervous at the prospect of a test in the previous video clip then he did at the sight of a dozen or so machines designed for the express purpose of ending human life.

The fight started with Kadaj manifesting lightning without use of any visible materia, and ended with him burying both of his weapon’s blades into the barrel of a laser defense turret. A moment later the device exploded magnificently, somehow leaving Kadaj improbably unmarred by shrapnel.

“I would like to think his combat capabilities speak for themselves.” Hojo smirked, before taking a moment to remove his glasses and clean them with an air of nonchalance that suggested he might as well be the room’s sole occupant.

“So he knows how to break Scarlet’s fancy toys. There’s more to warfare than skill with a blade or magic, you know! Is he willing to grind our foes into dust, to burn each and every single one of them to a pile of ashes?” Heidegger pressed.

In an instant the glasses were back on Hojo’s face, but they weren’t quite dark enough to keep Reeve from noticing the fact that the scientist’s eyes were shifting about considerably more than they normally did.

“As a weapon Kadaj is still rather incomplete, I’m afraid. His aggression levels towards living beings are regrettably minimal, but I’m certain this problem can be fixed with the right conditioning or chemical cocktail. 

Luckily, I was able to tailor his upbringing to take advantage of the strange way that Jenova cells seem to resonate with one another even in entirely different test subjects. It took no effort at all to convince him that his ‘brother’ Sephiroth was Shinra’s greatest hero, and thus he simply MUST be equally heroic. 

I must admit, while Project Second Silver has had its ups and downs, now that we are actually making real progress Sephiroth is proving to be even more useful to us as a martyr than he ever did while alive.” Hojo concluded.

So at the moment Simon Hojo considered the fact that his newest superpowered child soldier just wasn’t homicidal enough to be a major defect, lovely. Reeve wished he had a way to just turn his brain off and completely disengage from this conversation, but he hadn’t gotten where he was in life without having a memory that if anything only made events seem to get clearer and more focused when he thought back on them.

“What is your plan if things go wrong with Kadaj?” Reeve asked, while in the back of his mind somehow suspecting it was more a matter of “when” than “if”, all things considered.

“The wonderful thing about science is that once you succeed, your results are so easy to replicate. I’ve already created additional Kadaj-line Second Silver specimens and have them germinating in artificial wombs as we speak.” Hojo noted confidently.

“How long before we can unleash him on Avalanche?” President Shinra finally joined the conversation.

“Let's just say that I’m sure that Kadaj will find a way to help Shinra truly ring in the new year...” Cackled Hojo, drawing a “Gya haah hah hah” from Heidegger and a no less enthusiastic “Kya hah hah” from Scarlet.

XXX XXX XXX

Everything beyond that particular discovery was normal enough for a Shinra quarterly review meeting (which meant it would qualify as “profoundly terrifying” in just about any other context) and soon Reeve was headed back to his office.

The sad thing was how coldly “logical”, almost inevitable it all was. Shinra had never shied away from the idea of fielding child soldiers. It still thoroughly escaped Reeve why exactly the wealthiest organization on the face of the Planet should feel the need to employ “soldiers” who hadn’t even reached fifteen years of age. The logic behind such a decision thoroughly escaped Reeve… and even more horrifying… it had worked.

Not in the simple sense that Shinra had been able to grind down its foes through sheer attrition. No, “sensible”, “mature” men like General Heidegger hadn’t won the Wutain War, it’d been won by a bunch of… children.

Children like General Sephiroth who would be all of twenty seven years old if he was still alive today… a thought that somehow made Reeve Tuesti (who was only thirty five years old himself) feel like he was so ancient he might as well crumble to dust then and there.

Reeve made it back to the sanctuary of his office, closed the door and looked out the window. From this high up in Shinra HQ he looked out on a sea of over a million gently shining lights, each and every single one of them drawing power from the city’s mako reactors. 

The Shinra Electric Power Company was a drug dealer, and their narcotic of choice was the impossibly cheap to produce and “clean” energy provided by mako power. It had turned the entire Planet into a culture of addicts, and himself just one more pusher.

It was at times like these that Reeve was glad there was at least one person in the building whom he could hold an honest conversation with.

He sat down at his desk, and pressed a button to activate the intra-building communication system. A moment later there was a mechanical tone telling him his call had been received.

“Shinra Electric Power Company General Affairs Auditing Department...” Answered someone in the sort of sweet sing-song voice that men used when they want to annoy their conversation partner.

“I made a mistake on my latest expense report and overcharged the company. I’d like a chance to get my paperwork in order.” Reeve replied.

“We’re sending our most dedicated agent up to you right now.” The voice promised.

There were hardworking people in the world like Reeve who refused to simply surrender no matter how impossible a task they were confronted with.

There were lazy people in the world who never accomplished anything.

There were people who shared both traits in equal measure.

Reeve had only met one person on the entire Planet in whom the two traits had somehow become inverted, and a dedication to doing as little as possible resulted in tremendous accomplishments.

That was why he’d barely had time to finish figuring out how to properly shuffle the numbers in his department’s budget (by simply giving himself a 5% pay cut he was able to make sure that none of his employees would be downsized despite the fact that President Shinra had decided to cut Urban Development’s funding… again….) before his guest arrived.

“Shinra Electric Power Company General Affairs Auditing Department, we know what you did last summer!” Proudly declared a red-haired man who was wearing an unkempt blue suit which had been left unbuttoned down just past his pectorals.

His spiky red hair and bangs were further accented by a pair of red tattoos leading out from under his eyes and up to his forehead, upon which a pair of thick aviator goggles rested. 

The man known only as Reno had wormed his way into Shinra’s power structure then burrowed in still deeper with the sort of dedication and complete disregard for the structure involved that one typically only saw from termites. Reeve had once tried to figure out who exactly was responsible for hiring Reno, and had discovered that somehow at least five different people (one of whom had since been fired while another was simply dead) were involved in a complex shell game of blame shifting, with each believing someone else had made the final call.

Reeve had learned absolutely nothing of value about how exactly Reno had joined Shinra from that attempt… and absolutely everything there was to know about Reno himself as a person.

“Mr. Tuesti, it is entirely too late and you are entirely too sober to be working.” Reno insisted after taking a moment to examine the head of Shinra’s Urban Development Department.

Reeve couldn’t help but agree, chiefly because he knew that he was never going to get any serious work done after a quarterly meeting, they always left him helplessly traumatized. For that matter if he measured his performance only by the mission statement of the Urban Development Department (“We will improve our customers' quality of life”) Reeve had actually “out-lazied” Reno!

Because what he was doing these days wasn’t improving peoples’ lives, it was ending them. 

So far as Reeve could determine President Shinra and the other department heads had decided that his job was to murder as few people as possible with the large number of primed grenades they kept tossing to him. 

That was what Reeve’s “job” amounted to: murder by numbers, financial homicide, or, if he was feeling charitable with himself, fiscal manslaughter. 

Here someone was going to die to a curable disease because a hospital had been closed down, there some drunkard was going to drive off the side of a road because the crash barriers hadn’t been replaced recently, and he couldn’t forget that elsewhere someone was inevitably going to die when an unrepaired bridge collapsed, either onto their head or under their tires.

Reeve Tuesti was the only man on the face of the Planet who could make a convincing case for having killed more people than General Sephiroth…

It was a testament to how good he was at his job that Urban Development hadn’t become a “paper department” the way that Shinra’s Space Program had. Evidently President Shinra liked how amazing Reeve was at keeping Midgar’s people from rising up in a murderous mob against the company that never stopped trying to discover new ways to make their lives just a little bit worse.

There was nothing that Reeve dreaded more than the inevitable day when President Shinra complimented him with something along the lines of “Well done you son of a bitch, you could almost make me believe you actually cared about our customers!” because he somehow knew it was coming.

For the moment though, rather than continuing to decide which poor soul would next have to shed blood rather than even risk the possibility of Shinra seeing red in their budget, Reeve opened up a small compartment in his desk, pulling out a bottle and four glasses.

He filled all four of the glasses and Reno eagerly snatched three of them, managing to hold one in either hand while enfolding the third in the crook of his left elbow.

“Reno, why does the Planet hate me?” Reeve wondered as he began to drain his own glass.

“Mr. Tuesti, anyone who thinks the Planet cares about them in particular is on an ego trip. The bitch hates all of us, what you gonna do?” Reno answered without hesitation.

Reeve had no logical counterargument. For that matter, if Reno knew the things that Reeve did, he would probably agree that the Planet had every right to hate humanity.

“We’re going to drink.” Was the only answer Reeve could give.

“That kind of split-second brilliant decision-making is exactly why you get paid the gallons of gil Mr. Tuesti!” Reno insisted, contorting his body in unnatural ways to refill his glasses without needing to put them down first.

This was what Reeve wanted; in times of mad kings and crazed tyrants the court jester was the only man who was allowed to speak the truth, and thus the only man who a dangerous truth could be spoken to.

“Reno, this isn’t going to work.” Reeve sighed.

“Not if you’re taking that long to empty a single glass. Come on Mr. Tuesti, there’s no ‘I’ in ‘Team’ but there is a ‘U’ and an ‘R’ in ‘drunk’, so who are we to second guess the wisdom of the ancients?” Reno encouraged him.

Reeve pounded down his second glass of the expensive liquor and gazed out at the flickering lights of Midgar.

“We’re all stuck in a rut, doing the exact same thing we’ve been doing ever since the Wutain War ended. Heidegger wants a new war to fight, so his heavy handed action's create more support for Avalanche than they suppress, Scarlet creates some new slightly bigger gun, Hojo still thinks Sephiroth is all that matters, Palmer … still attends meetings…. all while I bail water ‘out’ of an already sunk ship.

The Shinra Electric Power Company is a lumbering dinosaur that has outgrown all its natural predators and is now lazily using its massive bulk to crush anything it doesn’t like. Well we all know how that ended though, don’t we? One day we’re gonna look up and see a gigantic meteor headed straight for us… and all the money we’ve made won’t make one damn lick of difference.” Reeve sighed.

“I’ve heard worse reasons to drink, here’s to the meteor, a swift and painless death is still better than some people get!” Reno vowed in a voice which was far too cheerful for Reeve’s liking.

Not that it kept Reeve from clinking glasses with the most intelligent man in all of Shinra HQ, because the two of them were the only ones smart enough to realize what completely hopeless idiots they actually were.

XXX XXX XXX

Somewhere in the Lifestream a black glove twitched.

[End Chapter One.]

AN: My portrayal of Reeve is based on the exact same principle that was used to portray Police Commissioner Gordon in the recent Harley Quinn animated series (and to a lesser degree Michael Bluth of Arrested Development), exploring the psychological impact of a character being the only sane and rational person in their workplace, and how that would inevitably drive them just as crazy as everyone else they have to interact with, but in a distinctly different way.

My portrayal of Reno is the more or less fairly standard comic exaggeration of the source material.

My portrayal of Kadaj is…. going to go in some interesting directions.

Also to be clear, the “logical” head-cannon reason for why in the remake the Turks are seen meeting in the “General Affairs Auditing Department” is because the Turks have several different possible meeting rooms set up throughout Shinra HQ, all of which has painfully mundane titles, and then they more or less randomly rotate which one they are actually meeting in as a security precaution.

However since Final Fantasy VII is a cyberpunk dystopia we must be honest with ourselves and face the possibility that Shinra really has become so bloated and profitable that no one cares that on those days when Tseng calls in sick (or is recovering from bullet/sword wounds) Reno is in charge of the auditing department for a company that probably accounts for roughly 60% of the entire Planet’s GDP.

If you’re interested how this story lines up with the timeline, well according to the current FFVII timeline, the game starts on December 9th so this third quarter review meeting is happening a little later than normal, you got me.

Finally I’d like take a moment and thank The_Story_Maker whose own awesome and dramatic Aerith/Sephiroth piece “Epiphany” helped finally inspire me to write FFVII fiction again, and Fenrir4Life who not only helped edit this story but also gave a few (make that a lot of) suggestions.


	2. And though they tell you I am lost, and their words report my death is come, the fates have left me breathing still, very much alive.

/My name is General Sephiroth, I am a human being. I am not a monster.\ The silver haired man thought to himself.

He’d been thinking those words a lot recently.  
  
He would have shouted them from the top of his lungs, but his mouth would have been filled with Lifestream before he was able to make a single sound.

His body flowed through the Lifestream and it allowed him to feel the “sound” of countless voices calling out to him. He could hear the curses of those who he had slain, and the plaintive begging of those who had died in his service, asking if their deaths had accomplished anything worthwhile.

He ignored both; the dead should be able to attend to their own affairs. Right now, all that mattered to him was his quest.

/Out of my way, I’m going to see my mother.\ Sephiroth thought “loudly” and pushed on past those spectral cries.

The Lifestream contained the essence of every human who had ever lived. He was human, he was sure of it… so somewhere in this endless green ocean, he could find his mother. The fact that he still didn’t know her name (whatever it was, it damn sure wasn’t “Jenova”) didn’t matter, such was the power of the Lifestream.  
  
All Sephiroth had to do to was reach out and find the one essence flowing through it that truly cared about him, that truly loved him. She had to be out there somewhere. Was not a mother’s love the gift bestowed upon every child?  
  
Did she hate him? Was that why her mind refused to reach out and touch his own no matter how hard he tried?

If she did hate him, he could hardly blame her...  
  
Sephiroth had killed his own mother before he’d even drawn his first breath, before he’d ever opened his eyes.

The reports had been incredibly clear on that point, once he’d realized what facts someone as untrustworthy as Simon Hojo had decided to omit rather than include.  
  
The Jenova project’s “creation phase” had only lasted six months. Sephiroth’s body was far more efficient than that of any other human being, it had probably been so even in his mother’s womb. Every human child was a parasite upon their mother’s body, consuming energy and giving nothing in return.

Sephiroth’s body, in its remorseless drive to ensure his survival, would have simply taken the process to the next level … absorbing so much of his mother’s energy that she dropped dead the moment he was born.

Still, here in the Lifestream where all of humanity was blended together into one glorious gestalt, there had to be a chance for a reunion. There had to be.  
  
He was going to find her… he was going to apologize… he was going to know what it actually meant to be loved. That was what he had to do, and General Sephiroth always succeeded no matter how impossible the task.

He would use the Lifestream to travel from one side of the planet to the other, he would “sail” this green ocean for however long it took. He would prove to himself that he was an actual human being, no matter what. Hojo had broken Sephiroth’s soul into a million different pieces but he was going to piece himself back together… he just needed a little help to get the process started.

/My name is General Sephiroth, I am a human being. I am not a monster.\ He repeated the mantra once more.

/You don’t belong here...\ A voice called out to him.

This one was different than any that had come before. In the ocean of the Lifestream, every other voice he’d encountered had been like a rock, completely stuck in place, easy for him to avoid.  
  
If Sephiroth’s body was a ship in the Lifestream, this voice was a current, wrapping around him and trying to direct his path.  
  
/Leave me alone!\ Sephiroth thought back at the voice, refusing to have his course changed, refusing to abandon his quest.

/Only you could spend five years on your own, and then still be upset at the idea of having to talk to someone, Boss...\ The voice replied.  
  
Sephiroth could feel the current generate minor wave, almost like a hand made of Lifestream gently brushing up against his own. That was when he realized that this “current” had a face, a name, and a personality that Sephiroth all knew by heart.

But if they were down here that meant they weren’t alive anymore… and that was one more cursed bit of knowledge that Sephiroth would have been happier not knowing.

/Zack... It hasn’t been five years… has it?\Sephiroth thought back, finally “speaking with” rather than just “talking to” a Lifestream essence.  
  
Keeping exact track of time in the Lifestream was difficult, there was no day or night in the green ocean, and while he was enfolded in the very essence of existence itself he did not need to eat, drink or even sleep. It had been… a very long time indeed since Sephiroth had even actually bothered to open his eyes, instead navigating the Lifestream by intuition alone.

/Would I lie to you?\ Zack countered.

/Yes. As a Second, you asked me to sign a leave slip so you could visit your parents. Instead, you took said slip with you into the slums to prove to a certain young lady that you actually know me.\ For a man moving through a fluid medium, the tone of his mental voice was positively arid.

/Did not realize you knew that.\ Zack Fair’s essence admitted somehow managing to perfectly convey shock and embarrassment without any sort of physical body.

/I know lots of things you don’t, that’s why I’m the General.\ Sephiroth calmly reminded his favorite subordinate.

/By the way, if it makes you feel better, it didn’t work; seems that somewhere out there in Sector Five there’s at least one girl who isn’t mooning over you. Anyway, there are two things you need to know. I’ll make it quick, since I’m sure you want this conversation, just like every other conversation you’ve ever had to be a part of, over and done without delay.\ Zack insisted.

Sephiroth wasn’t bothered by Zack’s flippant comments. As far as he was concerned, the point of a conversation was to pass along information after all; the more quickly it could be done. the more efficient the conversation had been.

/I’m here, you’re here… but did you ever check that _**he**_ was here?\ Zack’s spirit inquired.

The words struck Sephiroth like a physical blow.

/No. No. He’s here… he has to be. He managed to drag me down, but only because he fell first.\ Sephiroth insisted, for the first time in wondering if he'd actually made the best use possible of the last five years.

/He isn’t, trust me.\ Zack insisted.

/What is the other thing I need to know?\ Sephiroth demanded, refusing to spend all the time that he’d need in order to fully process Zack’s first revelation.

/Reach your left arm about two feet and clench your fist.\ Zack advised.

Sephiroth did… and for the first time since he’d fallen into the Lifestream he felt something solid.

His right hand reached out in the same direction and met with similar success.

Sephiroth wasn’t sure of what it was he’d actually grabbed hold of, but he was sure of one thing: finding his mother would have to wait. General Sephiroth had a new mission, or at least an old one that he hadn’t managed to finish the first time around.

XXX XXX XXX  
  
Lights flashed, alarm bells sounded, and Kadaj tried (without success) to doze on his bed. He wondered what all the noise was about and why it had to be so loud. If it was anything really important, somebody would tell him what to do.

That was how it worked after all, being a hero. It meant that people would come to you when they had problems that they couldn’t solve themselves, and then you helped themsolve those problems.  
  
Since nobody had come to Kadaj for help at the moment that must mean whatever was going on wasn’t all that bad. Maybe they had just triggeredall those alarm systems simultaneously to make sure that they were all still working properly?

He wished that they could have warned him about it ahead of time. Granted, there wouldn’t actually be much Kadaj could do about the irritatingly ear piercing sounds even if he’d known to expect them. Still, normally the doctors were nice enough to let him know in advance if something out of the ordinary was going to happen.

They looked after him, because he wasn’t as strong or as smart as Sephiroth, yet. As he laid there on his bed Kadaj couldn’t help but think to himself that if nothing else, he was sure that he was already every bit as brave as General Sephiroth. If he was given a chance, he’d help people no matter how risky it was, no matter what kind of danger he had to face.

Knowing that there was no way he’d be able to nap successfully with so many loud sounds ceaselessly assaulting his ears, Kadaj slid off his bed and stood up. He turned his attention to the two pieces of ornamentation in the otherwise bare room he called his own.  
  
The first was a mirror, and the second was a picture of a man with long silver hair. The man in the picture had his hair neatly parted to either side of his face so that there was no risk of his vision being obscured by it, unlike Kadaj’s own messy mop of silver strands. Kadaj had attempted to style his hair like the man in the picture’s more than once. Alas, no matter how hard he tried (and when the doctors didn’t need him he had nothing but free time on his hands with which to try) it always seemed to just drift apart.

Hair was weird.  
  
Brushing some of said hair out of his eyes so he could see clearly he gazed deeply into the one picture he’d been given of his older brother, General Sephiroth.

“Are you coming back today?” He asked the picture and rested a black gloved hand on top of it… though the picture (as pictures tended to do) remained unresponsive.

Kadaj tried to listen whenever the doctors talked to him and tried to learn as much as they could teach him. Sadly, some of the things they said just didn’t make sense no matter how long he spent thinking about them. Those thoughts and ideas (much like his hair) refused to be molded into a cohesive shape that could support its own weight.

General Sephiroth was a hero. That was self evident and undeniable. Sephiroth was the reason that the Shinra Electric Power Company had won its war with Wutai. He was the reason that mako power could be safely implemented across the entire Planet. Mako power was the thing that illuminated the light bulbs in his room, and light was better than darkness, especially since most people apparently had trouble seeing in the dark.

General Sephiroth was dead. That was… a painful idea, but not necessarily an impossible one. People were called heroes because they were willing to risk their lives when no one else would, and if you kept risking it again and again and again, eventually.. well the odds insisted that you couldn’t possibly win every time.

General Sephiroth was dead… and no one was sure why?

That idea was a squiggly bent thing; it was entirely the wrong shape to let Kadaj form a coherent triangle with the two proceeding ones.  
  
Heroes might die… but they would die doing something glorious and worthy of talking about, facing down some great and dangerous foe, trying to avert some horrific disaster, or rescuing some beautiful princess. Heroes didn’t simply vanish, they didn’t simply decide to stop being heroes without telling anyone. They also didn’t die in ways so mysterious that even the doctors couldn’t tell him anything about them.

Faced with those “stupid” and “wrong” facts that made no sense, Kadaj had decided that he’d just have to make his own; it was the only way for him to create a proper triangle and paint a picture of the world that made sense.  
  
So General Sephiroth wasn’t dead… he was just… waiting. After all, since the Wutain War had ended there hadn’t been any grand earth shaking threats to Shinra that he needed to fight. If a hero stopped heroing all of a sudden and vanished… it was obviously only so that they could dramatically return and save the day when people needed them most!  
  
That was a “smart” and “right” fact which made sense and Kadaj had been quite proud of himself when he’d come up with it.  
  
General Sephiroth was still out there… and if anything so horrible that even Kadaj couldn’t handle it showed up, Sephiroth would be there to save him. To look after his little brother. Because that was what families did: they cared for each other, and older brothers looked after little brothers when they got in trouble.  
  
“I wish you could be here with me, Sephiroth….. I’m…. lonely...” Kadaj sighed as he withdrew his hand from the picture.  
  
Talking to the doctors was all well and good, but Kadaj somehow instinctively knew that there was something special about himself, something that made him different from nearly everyone else.  
  
The fact that he’d needed to spend an entire day learning how to drink water from anything that wasn’t made of plastic without irrevocably crushing it had also been something of a clue.

Still, there was a great big wonderful world full of people out there just waiting for Kadaj to meet them; he just wasn’t ready yet. If you tried to use a sword the moment you pulled it out of the forge, all you ended up with was lumps of molten metal dribbling down on your hands, after all.

Kadaj languidly returned to his bed, promising that he would let himself cool, let himself be tempered by time….  
  
“Kadaj, we need you! Now!” One of the doctors insisted as the door to Kadaj’s room slid open all of a sudden.

Time moved a lot more quickly for heroes than it did for most people.

“What can I do to help?” Kadaj offered; his legs might as well have springs for how quickly he was off of his bed and across the room.  
  
“Take this and help these men!” The doctor ordered, passing Kadaj a familiar sheath.

Despite the fact that he could tell by weight alone what it was, Kadaj still took a moment to pull a foot or so of Souba (his personal sword) out of its sheath just to make sure. He’d feel pretty silly (and he wouldn’t be able to protect people properly) if he only discovered that he’d been given the wrong weapon after a fight had already started! Once he’d done that, he turned his attention to the person dressed in the standard blue and black full body Shinra guard outfit with a brown cloth obscuring their face.  
  
“Are you sure he’ll be able to help us?” The guard asked the doctor, his voice rough and masculine.

Kadaj tilted his head to the side quizzically, unsure why the guard was even asking that question, Kadaj was a hero, helping people was what he did!  
  
“Kadaj, there’s some kind of monster that’s climbing up the mako reactor’s drilling shaft. Honestly, none of us have ever seen anything like this before, but we need to make sure that whatever happens, it doesn’t start damaging the reactor!” The Doctor explained.

“Because if it damages the reactor then people are in danger! Don’t worry, you can count on me to stop it!” Kadaj vowed.

“Just make sure to follow the Sergeant and do exactly what he says.” The doctor insisted, drawing forth another eager nod of agreement from Kadaj.

So Kadaj followed the Sergeant who was soon joined by eleven other people in Shinra guard uniforms, all of them with rifles drawn and at the ready.

“This better not just be some kind of weird drill.”  
  
“They wouldn’t have let the Silver Freak out of its cage if this was just a test.”  
  
“I still say something like this doesn’t just happen by accident. Who ever heard of a mako reactor being attacked from the inside?”  
  
“Why would Shinra sabotage one of their own reactors?”

“Maybe they want to give the Silver Freak a real test, instead of robots armed with rubber bullets?”

“Without a care about whatever happens to us if we get caught in the middle?”

“Which is why we won’t get caught in the middle. Whatever happens, make sure the Freak is between us and this monster.”  
  
The guards were talking to each other in whispers, and it would have been rude for Kadaj to point out that he could hear them just fine. It wasn’t nice to eavesdrop after all, though there was nothing Kadaj could do to stop his ears from picking up sounds that were too quiet for most humans to hear.

Besides, what the guards had said didn’t bother him, so he saw no reason to comment on it. Okay, in all honesty, it did bother him a little that they couldn’t make the effort to call him by his name. The fact that he had only one name should have made it twice as easy to remember after all!

Still, Shinra wouldn’t try to trick him into fighting a monster for them, why would they waste so much time and energy creating some sort ofconvoluted scheme when all they really needed to was just ask him for help?

So Kadaj followed the guards and allowed himself to be lead deeper into the small mako reactor which had had provided the substances that had been used to help him grow.

 ****Deeper and deeper and deeper into the reactor until they finally reached its core. There, they took up positions along a catwalk above a huge pool of ominously bubbling glowing green liquid. Kadaj recognized it at once as the unprocessed mako that fed the reactor. He’d been told the stuff was extremely toxic, so he’d make sure not to end up accidentally splashing the stuff on the guards.

“Where is the monster you want me to fight?” Kadaj asked as he looked around; he’d never been this far down in the reactor before, but at the same time he couldn’t see anything that looked overtly dangerous.

The guards didn’t respond, so he simply unsheathed Souba, letting its hilt rest gently in his left hand, tips pointed down to the floor.

All of a sudden Kadaj felt it. It wasn’t something he could touch, see, hear, smell, or taste… but he could “feel” it all the same. Something big was coming!  
  
One of the glowing green bubbles popped and a vaguely humanoid figured soared upwards, somehow managing to cross the entire distance from the pools of mako below to the catwalk in one jump, a feat not even Kadaj was sure he’d be able to pull off, at least on his first try.  
  
Nonetheless, Souba was up in an instant, both blades pointed straight at the green figure.  
  
“If you’re going to hurt any of them, you have to go through me first!”

Instead of attacking, the dripping green figure began to shake itself about wildly. Small droplets of glowing green were cast in all directions, and the guards fell back to avoid them. Kadaj didn’t bother to move though;why should he be afraid of the substance that had helped give him the power to be a hero?

As the glowing green liquid fell away Kadaj could see that beneath it was black fabric, an extremely long sword sheath, bright silver hair… and for the first time in his life he could see another set ofgreen eyes with vertically slit pupils somewhere other than his mirror!

Souba dropped from suddenly limp fingers.

“Don’t fire, it’s General Sephiroth!” Kadaj called out.

There was a horrific “click” of firearms having their safeties disabled.

“DON’T FIRE, IT’S GENERAL SEPHIROTH!” Kadaj screamed wondering why he was the only one who could see the obvious.

The crack of a rifle being fired was so loud that it didn’t hurt Kadaj’s ears, it hurt his soul.

Then that single crack suddenly became a shameful symphony as all of the other guards started firing.

Bullets flew through the air, moving paradoxically impossibly fast and yet impossibly slow at the same time.

“IT’S GENERAL SEPHIROTH!” Kadaj howled like a wounded animal, and then somehow acting on pure instinct his hands moved with complete certainty.  
  
Arcs of bright blue lightning leaped from his finger and shot forward, the magical manifestation of Kadaj’s refusal to allow this tragedy to continue unfolding.

The bullets were fast, but Kadaj’s lightning was faster. Each every single round was struck by a bolt of crackling electricity and sent spinning off course to slam harmlessly into the reactor’s walls.  
  
Silence suddenly filled the room, but Kadaj knew that it couldn’t last, it wouldn’t last, unless he did something.  
  
He spun around and faced the guards who had accompanied him.

“NOBODY HURTS MY BROTHER!” Kadaj roared.  
  
The lighting didn’t leap from his fingers this time, it seemed to erupt from every part of his body. He could feel strands of electrical energy tearing free from his back, and then looping around in midair to lash out at the guards.

One by one, just like how he’d managed to deal with each of the bullets, Kadaj’s electrical dischargestruck home against the ones who’d fired those shots in the first place.  
  
There was a series of almost festive pops as unspent ammunition cooked off inside magazines.

As was always the way with lighting, the bolts Kadaj had summoned departed as quickly as they’d arrived. A moment later a dozen Shinra guards collapsed, their bodies smelling of ozone and cooked meat.

A thirteenth body joined them as Kadaj fell to his knees. He felt bile and revulsion rise up in his chest, and forced himself not to surrender to despair. Heroes kept going no matter how bad the situation, no matter what mistakes they made. Not quite standing back up, but not quite shuffling forward on his knees either, Kadaj shambled over to the fallen guards.  
  
Every Shinra guard carried at least one healing potion, it was company policy. Company policy, because Shinra cared about people and wanted to keep them safe.

One by one Kadaj gently forced each guard who he had shocked into submission to drink their healing potion.

He did whatever he could to make the situation better, that was what a hero did.  
  
After he’d done that though instinct and training ran out, leaving behind only pain and guilt.

“I’m sorry Sephiroth.. if… if… if I’d been as good at leading troops as you are I could have convinced them not to fire! I could have made it work! I could have saved the day! I’m… I’m a failure of a little brother...” Kadaj moaned in anguish, turning about once more to face Shinra’s true hero.

  
XXX XXX XXX  
  
General Sephiroth wasn’t sure what he’d expected to be waiting for him upon escaping the Lifestream… but it damn sure wasn’t this.

End Chapter


	3. Livin' in stereo, it's all right.  Well I can be my own best friend...

General Sephiroth was not ready for this. He was not ready for this in the slightest. The fact that there were Shinra guards prepared to ambush him when he’d first emerged from the Lifestream was fine, Sephiroth had walked into (and inevitably out of) ambushes a great deal more deadly than a dozen men armed with assault rifles.  
  
No, what completely blindsided him was the silver haired young man currently down on his knees trying and failing to choke back tears.  
  
This was not a problem that could be solved by Sephiroth’s skill with a blade or magic, unless he was willing to simply kill the young man and then continue with his escape. Not really an option, now that said young man had just unleashed powerful magic on Sephiroth’s behalf.

So it looked like he was going to have to solve this problem his least favorite way… talking to other people.  
  
Now that he’d decided what he was going to do, how the hell was he actually going to do it?

He took another moment to analyze what had just happened logically… hoping that “logic” would still still be useful in a situation this insane.  
  
Put aside the fact that he’d called Sephiroth his brother; that was a problem for Future Sephiroth. This was a young man suffering from obvious mental fatigue after a combat experience. Sephiroth could work with that; this wasn’t the first victim shell shock he’d encountered.  
  
Don’t think of him as a mysterious “what in the name of the Planet” enigma that made no sense, just think of him as a private fresh to the front line. All he had to do was get him capable of walking and talking again; somebody else would take care of things after that. Sephiroth desperately hoped somebody else would take care of things after that.

“What is your name?” Sephiroth asked.  
  
“Kadaj,” the young man sniffled.  
  
Then he rubbed his black gloves against his face and wiped away a few tears.

“I really screwed this up didn’t I?” Kadaj whimpered.

“They’re all still alive.” Sephiroth observed.

He wasn’t averse to killing people who tried to shoot him, but he wasn't particularly interested in a body count, either. Based on the youth's reaction, Kadaj really didn't want blood on his hands. Probably for the best; so long as it didn’t get in the way of winning battles a little squeamishness could be forgiven, it was certainly better than having to deal with a mad dog.

“Yeah… I guess you’re right.” A little more sniffling and slowly the tears stopped.

“You really are General Sephiroth… my big brother, right?” Kadaj pressed.  
  
/ _Damn_ you, Past Sephiroth.\

“Lets…. talk… about the... ‘big brother’ thing. I don’t have any siblings.”

“Oh that’s easy to explain!” Kadaj’s face brightened and he jumped to his feet, doubt and remorse banished by sheer enthusiasm.

“The thing is, you _didn’t_ have any siblings… then Shinra made me. I’m a clone based on your DNA, but allowing for different chromosome combinations, so if we were the same age we’d be fraternal rather than identical twins. I was was artificially aged in a tank full of mako harvested by this reactor!” Kadaj all but babbled with an a slightly too exuberant smile on his face.

That was a lot to unpack, even for General Sephiroth.

First, there was the fact that Shinra was trying to clone him. That did sound depressingly like something that they would do. Even when he was working for them, Sephiroth had been quite keenly aware of the fact that certain people high up in the Shinra organization (Simon cough Hojo) would have loved for him to be more tractable.  
  
Secondly, just the fact that he was having this conversation meant that those same “certain people” had made disturbing progress relating to the mysterious project Sephiroth had discovered back at the Nibelheim reactor. Judging by Kadaj, Hojo wasn’t just making monsters anymore…. or maybe he was just making monsters that looked more like people? Sephiroth was going to have to do something about that, one more mission to add to a quickly growing list.  
  
At the moment, his biggest problem was that Kadaj believed that Sephiroth’s and Shinra’s aims were still aligned. So what was the best strategy to co-opt Shinra’s newest biological superweapon?  
  
“It’s so great that you’re back General Sephiroth; is there anything I can help you with?” Kadaj offered.

Sephiroth had heard of opportunity knocking, but this was the first time he’d experienced opportunity kicking your door down and leading a parade through your living room.

Still, how best to explain that when your big brother and the corporation he’d served for close to a decade stopped loving each other, it didn’t mean that your big brother had stopped having a vested interested in his little brother’s future?

“I do have a mission that I could use some help with. It is a mission that _will_ require doing some things Shinra won't approve of...” Sephiroth tried to awkwardly ease his way into the matter.

Kadaj tilted his head to the side and gave Sephiroth a look that made him feel like he was trying to teach trigonometry to a toddler.

“Would it help if I explained all the bad things that Shinra has done to me? I’m willing, but… this isn't an ideal time to do so...” Sephiroth offered.

Kadaj’s head slowly began to move, but it just kept on moving so that it ended up tilted to the right rather than the left.

“What… what do you need help with?” Kadaj more or less repeated his previous question.

The silver haired general was tempted to tell his “little brother” that he wouldn’t believe exactly what sort of a problem Sephiroth was dealing with at the moment.  
  
Then his brain helpfully reminded his instincts that he was talking to someone who thought discussing how he was Sephiroth’s clone was a perfectly good ice breaker. In that light, Sephiroth suspected that Kadaj would be willing to believe quite a lot, so long as it was Sephiroth telling it to him.

“There’s an ex-Shinra employe whose mind has been corrupted by an alien parasite. It commandeered his body, rewrote his priorities, and greatly amplified his aggression. It also made him powerful enough to survive our last encounter and has had several years to work on him since then. He’s already destroyed an entire small town; I need to stop him before he gets a chance to do it again.” Sephiroth admitted.

Kadaj broke into that disturbingly wide smile again, though it soon gave way to a series of awkward facial contortions and twitches before he somehow managed to both smile and frown at the same time.

“That’s good, I mean it's really bad for all the people who lived in the town… and now kind of aren’t living anymore… not to mention the possibility that other people might get hurt... but it totally sounds like a problem that I can help you with!” Kadaj promised.  
  
Then the broken smile gave way to full frown.  
  
“How exactly... do I help?” Kadaj wondered.

Sephiroth quickly created a mental checklist. This was going to be a lot different from the Wutain War, and while supply lines weren’t likely to be an issue, supplies still would be.

“Do you have money?” Sephiroth asked.

It was crass, but Sephiroth had never let crassness get in the way of completing a mission before.  
  
“No...” A crestfallen Kadaj admitted.

“We’re going to go get some of it. Can you show me to the commissary?” Sephiroth inquired.

“The, what now?” Kadaj blinked in confusion.  
  
“The place where people eat.” Sephiroth promptly clarified, not especially surprised that the term might fall outside the young clone’s vocabulary.

“Well, I eat in my room and...” Kadaj began.  
  
In the time it would have taken Kadaj to figure how he wanted to finish that sentence Sephiroth had already done a little figuring of his own.  
  
“Are you allowed to leave it whenever you want?” He asked, quite certain he already knew the answer.  
  
“Not... really?” Kadaj admitted, his upbeat expression wilting once more.

It was almost disturbing how swiftly he switched between joy and sorrow, not to mention how openly he wore his emotions; Sephiroth was certain he’d never been like that, even as a child.

“If you can’t leave it whenever you want to, it isn’t your room; it’s your cell.” Sephiroth insisted.

Kadaj once again tilted his head to the side as his face was wracked by all too obvious confusion.  
  
“But cells are for people who do bad things, and I haven’t done anything bad… well what I just did with the lighting was sort of bad, but I didn’t do anything bad before that, so why would Shinra be keeping me in a cell?” He ‘reasoned’; if you could call it that.

“Remember when I mentioned Shinra having done the bad things to me? They used to keep me in a cell even though I hadn’t anything bad either.” Sephiroth pointed out.  
  
He was actually underselling the matter to be perfectly honest; “cell” implied that you were able to move around inside of it, what they’d kept Sephiroth would be more accurately called a cage.

“But if they did bad things to you… why did you help them so much?” Kadaj wondered.

“That’s a very long and complicated story that I’ll tell you at another time. Do you still want to help me on my important mission, or do I need to take care of it alone?” Sephiroth felt a slight twinge of guilt; he’d known Kadaj for less than five minutes and was already emotionally blackmailing him.

He didn’t have a choice though; if Shinra had sent Kadaj and a dozen guards down here, there were bound to be still more reinforcements arriving eventually. Sephiroth flat out didn’t have the hours of time necessary to explain each and every mistake he’d made over the course of his life which had lead him to the mess he currently found himself in.

“I’ll help! Can we escape without needing to hurt any of the doctors though? They’re always so nice to me!” Kadaj awkwardly flip flopped between enthusiastic offers and making requests.  
  
“If they don’t try to stop me, I promise I won’t hurt them.” Sephiroth vowed.  
  
Even with a brand new “recruit” to help him, though, Sephiroth knew that “personnel”, would have to remain his next priority, once “funding” was settled. He and Zack working together hadn’t quite been enough to get the job done the first time around. While Kadaj was an unexpected gift, war tended to favor the big battalions even if the type of “war” Sephiroth was planning on would probably have a different definition of “big” or even “battalion” for that matter.

Where else could he possibly get help from? He damn sure wasn’t going to go crawling back to Shinra now that he knew everything they’d done to him. The problem was that outside of Shinra personnel who would be willing to risk their lives to help him? Being completely honest with himself, while Sephiroth had been excellent at leading an army, actually… making friends… wasn’t his strong suit.

Then it came to him, there was one person he could think of… he just had to hope she was still alive, find out where she was, and hope that she was in the mood to drop whatever she was currently doing and help Sephiroth with his mission.  
  
In short it was a long shot, but that was still better than no shot at all.

“Kadaj, follow me, we’re going to go find the commissary.” Sephiroth instructed, in the back of his mind suddenly aware that it had been five years since he’d last eaten, and some actual food might not go amiss alongside the funds he planned to plunder.

“Before we go, can I ask you one more question?” Kadaj implored, shuffling his feet awkwardly.  
  
“What is it?” Sephiroth replied, suddenly feeling more on edge than he had any other point in this conversation.  
  
“Is it okay if I call you ‘Seph’, big brother?” Kadaj pleaded.

General Sephiroth had never kicked a puppy before, but now he knew exactly how the poor theoretical canine would look at him if he had… and it had been raining… and the puppy had two broken legs… and a broken tail it was still trying to wag….

“If you absolutely must.” Sephiroth finally caved, knowing full well he’d regret this that decision very soon and keep on regretting it for a very long time.

XXX XXX XXX

“Attention everyone in this research facility: yes I am General Sephiroth, and yes I am still alive. Before you even ask; yes I am also mildly miffed with the Shinra Electric Power Company over the little matters of leaving me for dead.

That said, I also understand that the vast majority of you people are just trying to collect a paycheck. Some of you might even have fooled yourselves into thinking you’re making the world a better place. I’d suggest that all you spontaneously develop a cold, fever, or some other minor ailment and go home to get some sleep.” Sephiroth advised the first group of scientist he came across.  
  
“Yeah, if you don’t follow my big brother’s advice you’re gonna regret it!” Kadaj added, substituting exuberance for actual charisma.

It was really impressive to Kadaj how quickly people moved to obey Sephiroth’s orders, but then, that was why he was General Sephiroth, after all!  
  
A short while later the two of them finally managed to locate the “commissary” that Sephiroth was so interested in, and they even had the entire place to themselves!

“Kadaj, this is a vending machine.” Sephiroth explained, gesturing towards a large rectangle with three black sides and a single transparent one, with what looked like ration bars dangling tantalizingly inside it.

“Not only are they the quickest method of obtaining calories, but in a desperate situation, which this qualifies as, they’re also a quick method of obtaining hard currency.” Sephiroth paused, then glanced back at Kadaj.

"What I am about to do is not the normal method for using one of these." The lecture concluded.

He then shattered the transparent barrier with a casual, almost lazy, elbow strike. For a follow up, he kicked the side of the vending machine, bending it nearly in half and triggering a small flood of shining 25, 50 and 100 denomination gil coins from a little slot close to the bottom.

Kadaj couldn’t help but marvel at his older brother’s boundless wisdom.  
  
Sephiroth then grabbed one of the ration bars that was dangling on some sort of rotating screw and headed over to the nearest table. On top of said table rested a laptop that Sephiroth had politely requested one of the departing scientist relinquish to help with his mission.

Siting down before it Sephiroth began to tap keys and Kadaj watched eagerly over his shoulder (after making sure to grab one of the ration bars for himself as well).

Kadaj chewed and swallowed faster than was entirely safe- it was Not Polite to talk with your mouth full, but his curiosity was becoming unbearable. After a five-second eternity, he could finally appease it.

"What are you doing?"  
  
“Things seemed to have changed in the last five years, but I’m willing to bet Shinra hasn’t changed THAT much. If doing something would take effort, but not doing it won’t obviously cost them money, then no matter how reasonable it might be, they won’t do it. So, let’s find out if Shinra ever bothered to disable my company account….” As Sephiroth said those words, Kadaj couldn’t help but notice that it was the closest he’d yet seen his big brother get to smiling.

XXX XXX XXX

Reeve Tuesti had a morning routine. He liked routines; they were a wonderful way of fooling yourself into thinking that so long as you did the same thing every day you’d get the same results.  
  
He entered his office with his own personal coffee mug held in his right hand. Once upon a time, that mug had born an amusing slogan about how irregular mental faculties were not a requirement for employment yet would still prove beneficial. Alas, time had worn away at the mug, much as it had the nerves of its owner.

By this point all that was left of the prior slogan was simply “be crazy, it helps”.

As one of the seven richest men on the planet, Reeve could have afforded a new mug… he could have afforded to buy a new coffee mug every day. For that matter, he could afford to simply toss his current coffee mug out the office window and endlessly repeat the process, buying a new mug to go with each cup of coffee he drank.

But this mug had been with him for a long time, he’d actually brought it with him on his first day of work at the Shinra Electric Power Company. Reeve looked down a the mug, and wondered if he could remember anything else about that day….

As familiar feelings of existential dread began to creep over him Reeve fought back the only way he could, by throwing himself into his morning routine. As the head of the Urban Development Department, Reeve was responsible for all of Shinra’s infrastructure, both physical and virtual.

That was why he started every morning with a review of Shinra’s web systems. Some days there were signs that the systems were being probed, and IP tracing often suggested that Wutai was to blame, while infiltration attempts launched from someplace closer to home could probably be blamed on an Avalanche cell.  
  
Today, however, it seemed to be all quiet on the digital front. That, or whoever he was fighting with had managed to succeed so utterly and completely that Reeve wouldn’t even be aware he’d suffered a defeat until it was too late. It was thoughts like those that made Reeve so very glad he’d managed to convince President Shinra to make all the systems relating to the monitoring and functioning of the company’s mako reactors air-gapped and run on site.  
  
What he didn’t like thinking about was how he’d obtained the funding for that particular project.

It had required him to simultaneously send reactors 1, 5 and 8 into a stage one meltdown from his cellphone mid-meeting.

If by some Diabolus Ex Machina his cellphone service had cut out and he’d been unable to send the commands to restore the reactors to normal functioning, then Reeve Tuesti would be the martyred saint of every Avalanche cell from Midgar to Rocket Town.

Still, just because today’s digital behavior seemed to be perfectly normal when viewed as a whole didn’t mean that there wasn’t a possibility of something slipping beneath his notice if he only looked at major trends. That was why Reeve’s morning routine always concluded with him doing a thorough inspection of Shinra’s “Black Server”.

Reeve had once tried to get the Black Server decommissioned and replaced with a series of locked filing cabinets, but Hojo and Scarlet had united against his efforts, insisting that Shinra needed to stand for the future and the future was not filing cabinets.

So instead Reeve just had to live with the fact that the Black Server existed and would continue to exist.

It was where Shinra stored all of its most heavily guarded data; its contents were so secretive that even Reeve wasn’t allowed to edit, read, or in some cases even view the names of its files.

Luckily, he was allowed to have a complete breakdown of who accessed the server and for what purposes. Analyzing this data helped calm Reeve’s nerves immensely most days, since access to the Black Server tended to happened for fairly obvious reasons (even if they were only obvious in retrospect) like how Hojo had been uploading massive amounts of data to the server over the last few weeks because of his recently announced successes in project Second Silver.

Second Silver was, much like the Black Server, a Shinra project that Reeve would have all too happily decommissioned. It wasn’t because abducting vagrants off of the street in order to use them as unwillingly guinea pigs for a science experiment was morally repulsive (which of course it was). It wasn’t because the project alone had a larger budget then the entire Urban Development Department (which it did). It wasn’t because it had dragged on for five years and only now was starting to produce something that might possibly be considered as a useful result (which indeed it had). It wasn’t because the very concept of trying to recreate someone whose genetics hadn’t exactly been baseline human to start with was fraught with all manner of complications (which it obviously was, hence the previously mentioned years going by without useful results). It was because at the end of the day the juice would never be worth the squeeze.  
  
Even if somehow all the necessary pieces fell into place and Second Silver finally managed to generate a “New Sephiroth” for Shinra, what were they going to use him for? At the moment the only people who dared to “openly” oppose Shinra were Avalanche, and for some reason Reeve doubted that having a single invincible super-SOLDIER would be the most useful tool against a group of rebels whose favorite tactic was brief periods of high intensity violence before vanishing back into obscurity among Midgar’s civilian population.

Thankfully, many days (like today) went by without anyone even needing to access the Black Server.

Just as his routine inspection was wrapping up, a number on Reeve's screen changed. A green line representing data usage that had previously resembled a dead man’s heart-rate suddenly spiked upwards… much like Reeve’s own pulse.

It was just a coincidence and a bit of bad luck, he insisted to himself, taking a huge gulp from his coffee mug and beginning to run the data on where exactly the Black Server was being accessed from.

The answer that came back was… North Crater. At least, that was the answer for about ten seconds. Then the system insisted that the user in question was accessing the Black Server from the Gold Saucer. After that, it was Costa Del Sol, then Wutai, then Fort Condor and then from the moon itself!

Reeve told himself not to panic, this was normal, at least normal enough given the circumstances. Whoever was accessing the Black Server was either using a device with top of the line Shinra location jamming software, or was accessing it from a location that had been deliberately designed so that all devices inside of it would have their location obscured. That was fine, it was even a good sign, it was only when someone accessed the Black Server without taking security precautions that he would really need to start panicking.

Still, Reeve couldn’t help but dig a little deeper; what was this user doing, exactly?  
  
As it turned out, they weren’t uploading data, nor were they accessing it; they were downloading information off of the Black Server.  
  
“Oh dear.”

His fingers flew across the keyboard as he searched for still more information on this mysterious transaction. The file being downloaded covered the entire Nibelheim Incident and Shinra’s response to it.

Reeve grabbed the company ID of whoever was doing the downloading and cross checked it against the user database.

When he got the result his jaw went slack.  
  
His rational left brain promptly decided to grab a picket sign and go on strike until it was given a more sane version of reality to interact with. Thankfully his instinctual right brain was willing to step in and pick up the slack.  
  
Reeve’s fingers slammed against keys like he was trying to push some horrific monster back under the bed, then curled into a fist with which to pound the “ENTER” key hard enough that he was certain he’d need to buy a replacement.  
  
That done, Reeve just sat there in his plush chair, his body so limp it was a surprise he didn’t end up sliding out of it and landing on the floor. His eyes gazed up in horror at the screen before him, as if they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

UPDATE Users  
SET Active = ‘N’  
WHERE UserFirstName = ‘Sephiroth’ AND UserLastName= ‘Sephiroth’;

Once the command had been executed all activity on the Black Server ceased.  
  
Reeve began to reach out towards the paging device he used to contact Shinra’s “General Affairs Auditing Department” thinking that he needed to tell someone what had just happened.  
  
Then… then he remembered a saying from his past, back when he was in college; obtaining a double major in business administration and economics. Back when he’d still naively believed a company needed to make its customers happy if they wanted to make a profit.  
  
“The secret to good business organization is that all employees understand there comes a time when they must be willing to lead, follow or get out of the way...”

Reeve decided that the time had come for him to do what Reeve Tuesti did best whenever something important happened at the Shinra Electric Power Company…. get out of the way.

XXX XXX XXX  
  


A red icon popped up in the corner of the screen informing Sephiroth that his connection had been terminated, roughly five seconds after he’d finished downloading the file.

He opened it up and, knowing that even he didn’t have time to read the entire thing, instead opted for a quick “find” command, looking for one name in particular.

To Sephiroth’s surprise the name showed up only once in the file, and the passage containing it all dealt with events before the incident truly began. He tried a few misspellings or abbreviations of the name but still found nothing of value.  
  
Refusing to simply give up Sephiroth decided to try an entirely different approach.  
  
Shinra had terminated Sephiroth’s personal access to the Black Server, but not to this laptop’s connection to the internet. If the greatest and most secret of Shinra’s files didn’t have the answer, maybe, just maybe, it was simply just laying out there on the web, waiting for anyone to find it.

Thankfully, despite five years having passed since he last checked, his favorite search engine “Moogle” was still around, and a few keystrokes later, and he had his answer: not only was she still alive, but she owned a bar in Sector Seven!

Well, at least someone with the same name was still alive. It might be a good idea to do a little bit more investigation of “Seventh Heaven” just to make sure he wouldn’t be wasting his time. Unsurprisingly, some hole in the wall bar from the slums didn’t have their own web presence, but if he checked out a site that aggregated information on various restaurants….

“Beer is cheap, mixed drinks are both quick and excellent, and owner is a knockout... Handsy drunks patronize at their own risk. Five out of five, would totally be... defenestrated again?” Kadaj “helpfully” read the top rated review of the establishment over Sephiroth’s shoulder.

Without a word Sephiroth closed the laptop and tucked it under his right arm.  
  
“We need to leave before Shinra’s reinforcements arrive. Kadaj, we’re going bar hopping.” Sephiroth announced.

“That sounds great, Seph! What’s bar hopping?”

  
End Chapter.

AN: An “air-gapped” system is a computer system that has no connection to the wider internet at all, and instead must be accessed from a particular physical location. In real life nuclear power plant systems are air-gapped for exactly the same reason that Reeve convinced Shinra to air-gap their mako reactors.


	4. The brazen brass of the working class are here to find their voice.

Tifa Lockhart, the owner/bartender/waitress/bouncer of Seventh Heaven, took a moment to assess the patrons of her establishment as she came out from behind the bar. It was part of her standard evening routine; doing it gave her a chance to stretch her leg muscles instead of just standing in one place all night. Even more importantly, she could make sure that no one looked likely to start trouble.  
  
Tonight, it seemed to be just usual crowd: roughnecks, ne'er do wells, people down on their luck, and other unfortunates who found her establishment a good place to spend the evening. It was wings night, so there were actually as many people eating their dinner as drinking it, for a change.

Then she saw him.  
  
Most of Seventh Heaven’s visitors were relaxing and enjoying themselves, but one occupant seated at the small circular table by himself was crouched low over his food. The guy’s stance reminded her of a feral animal, fearful that to let their eyes wander was to invite his food being snatched away.

He needn’t have worried; Seventh Heaven wasn’t exactly high-class, but if anyone in her bar was foolish enough to steal from her customers, Tifa would show them the door- and a few other things, as well.

Seventh Heaven was nice like that; it was hers, and Tifa Lockhart would always fight to protect her home.  
  
Next to being a professional therapist or police interrogator, there were few occupations that could teach you how to read people like being a bartender. Tifa turned her practiced gaze on this unusual occupant, trying to figure out just how much she should be worried about him.

To start with there was his hair; silver was a color more frequently gifted to people by a dye bottle than genetics. Not only that, but the only kind of people who tended to be interested in dying their hair silver were….

One quick glance down at his outfit confirmed her suspicions.

/Oh Planet, he’s a Sepher!\

Among General Sephiroth's more dubious 'achievements' was the speed with which his distinctive look had been copied by those with more money than sense; even five years after he had vanished, there were still those rich hipsters trying to look “cool” or “dashing” by dressing in all black leather.

Her mystery man certainly met that qualification. Sepher Score: 1.

Not only was her Sepher wearing black leather, but his clothing was too clean, and too new, for him to have spent any real time in the slums.

Still, it wasn’t like she had grounds to criticize him; she was perfectly aware of the fact that the sight of her tending bar and serving food in a white crop-top and black miniskirt helped reel in new customers and bring back repeat business. Nothing wrong with dressing to impress.

With a mental shrug, Tifa continued her analysis.

He had obviously dyed his hair silver. Sepher Score: 2.

He was drinking water, which didn’t exactly set off alarm bells, but did set gears turning in Tifa’s head; most people in Seventh Heaven wanted beer, if not something harder.  
  
A quick glance at his baby smooth face suggested that either her mystery man owned the only sharp razor in Sector Seven, (where every man tended to sport some kind of facial hair, even if it was just stubble left over from using the cheapest razors Shinra sold) or was young enough that she should be grateful he was sticking to water.

Of course, Tifa wasn’t especially concerned about the possibility of some petty Midgar functionary showing up to shut down Seventh Heaven because she was serving booze to minors; no, it’d take a Turk strike team to shut down her bar.

While his beverage of choice wasn’t too strange, the way he interacted with it was. He’d stuck his fingers into his glass of water and was lazily swishing them back and forth against the ice cubes. Not only that, but his expression as he stirred his drink wasn’t one of boredom, but rather intense interest.

Looking closer, she should see that not only was he wearing a sword, but it was on his right hip, making it easier to draw if its wearer was left handed. It was possible this guy actually was both a southpaw and a competent swordsman, but statistically far more likely that he was a poseur who'd trip over his sword in the act of drawing it.  
  
Deducting half a point for uncertainty, she still felt comfortable bumping his "Sepher Score" up to a conservative 3.5.  
  
Green eyes: maybe natural, probably not. Mako glow: reflective contacts. Sepher Score: 4.5.  
  
He wasn’t the first Sepher she’d seen in Seventh Heaven, but it’d be an overstatement to say she saw one every month, or even every other month. Sephers were inevitably rich, and if there was one word that did not describe the population of Sector Seven, it was “rich”.  
  
So what was a rich kid doing in the middle of Sector Seven on his own? Well “kid” might not be entirely fair, he looked to be within two or three years of Tifa’s own age, but there was something about her mystery customer which projected an air of “youth” about him.

“Thanks.”

It seemed that her young Sepher had noticed what she was doing, which was to be expected; Master Zangan had warned her about how as you studied someone, you were inevitably giving them a chance to study you in turn.

“You’re welcome.” She replied to the Sepher, though she still having no idea exactly what he was thanking her for.

The chance to finally look him directly in the eye revealed that some how he’d managed to give his pupils the same sort of cat like vertical slit look that General Sephiroth’s had.

That was a new one; Tifa knew you could get “mako contacts,” but cat's eye lenses were a bit much. Definitely worth a point and a half. Image was one thing, but half-blinding yourself in pursuit of it?  
  
Sepher Score: 6!

He raised up one of the hot wings he’d ordered, then forced the entire thing past his lips to casually chew it up and swish its juices around his mouth before swallowing.  
  
“These are great!” He all but moaned with pleasure.

Tifa wanted to avoid getting drawn too deeply down this particular rabbit hole a second time, but couldn’t stop herself from thinking about the event she’d just witnessed.  
  
Normal people did not eat hot wings like that.  
  
Roughly five seconds from now, he should be either screaming in pain, or desperately chugging from his water glass, before following it up with someone else’s glass for good measure. On top of which, wearing leather gloves to eat wings was just ridiculous; the cleanup would be a nightmare.

Sepher Score: 7.

Tifa waited, but the Sepher showed no signs of having just scorched half of his taste-buds to ash.

“It was nice to meet you, Mr...?” Tifa trailed off, hoping she could at least get a name to put to the Sepher’s face.

“It’s Kadaj, just Kadaj.”  
  
Tifa couldn’t keep her eyebrows from shooting upwards in surprise. This guy insisted on acting like he had only one name?  
  
With that 3-point finisher, Just Kadaj's Sepher Score was an absolutely perfect 10 out of 10!

Somewhere in Upper Midgar, (because there was no way they lived beneath the Plate) this poor (in a strictly non-financial sense) boy’s parents were probably worried sick about him, assuming they cared where he was.  
  
With that final detail, even if she hadn’t managed put the entire puzzle of Kadaj together; she had enough pieces to see a general outline.. It was obvious that neither she or her patrons had anything to be worried about from him.

Which meant she had a bar in need of running.  
  
A she started to turn away, he spoke up again.

“Your eyes… they’re totally amazing, you know...”

“Thanks.”

It was far from the first time she’d had her eyes complimented since opening Seventh Heaven, though to Kadaj’s credit, he was actually looking at them when he did it.  
  
A long time ago, Tifa’s eyes had been deep brown, but these days they were mahogany, and there was nothing artificial about _their_ mako glow.

XXX XXX XXX  
  
General Sephiroth waited in the shadowy alley between Seventh Heaven and its nearest neighbor, watching for any sign of Kadaj or Tifa Lockhart. Even after being “dead” for five years and in a slum, he was still certain that he’d be recognized all too quickly should he just walk into Seventh Heaven. So instead, he’d sent Kadaj in, with orders to find way to convince Miss Lockhart to go outside with him.

As he waited, one thought kept running through his head again and again, he wished he still had his old second in command with him.

Not only because he had worked alongside Zack long enough to trust him like he’d never trusted anyone else, but because if there had ever been a SOLDIER who could be counted on to forge a friendly relationship with a bartender, it was Zack Fair.  
  
XXX XXX XXX

The rest of the night passed normally enough; people ordered food and drinks, Tifa provided them.

'Just Kadaj' had somewhat improbably hung around and, over the course of the evening, consumed three more orders of hot wings. At this point, Tifa could only assume that he must have suffered some kind of tragic wax-related accident as a child; the human mouth simply _did not_ handle that much capsaicin that casually.  
  
When every other customer had departed Tifa was tempted to start explaining to Kadaj exactly how the concept of “closing time” worked, but he managed to beat her to the punch.  
  
“My older brother really wants to meet you, he’s waiting just outside!” He declared with a cheerful smile.  
  
This was a new one to Tifa.

Yes, she was familiar with the concept of a “wing-man”, but it usually worked with two men being present at the same time. For that matter, Tifa could grasp the idea of a shy younger brother sending their more mature and experienced older brother in to break the ice, but why would an older brother use Kadaj to try and build a rapport with her?

On top of all that, given how Kadaj’s older brother was unquestionably rich (and probably also a Sepher), why hadn’t he just swaggered into Seventh’s Heaven and started throwing his money around if he wanted to impress Tifa? It wouldn’t have worked of course, but rich jerks often had more money than common sense.  
  
All this was strange, very strange.

“Why didn’t your brother come himself?” Tifa couldn’t help but ask.  
  
“He’s not as big a fan of crowds as I am.” Kadaj shrugged.  
  
Kadaj had sat by himself all evening, at a corner table, protecting his food like a starving animal and talking to nobody but her.

“I’m a little busy tonight.” Tifa turned her back on Kadaj, returning to gathering up glasses and plates.  
  
“He told me that if you didn’t want to see him, I should tell you, that he knew you back in, Nib-el-heim.” Kadaj pleaded, though he struggled with how to pronounce Tifa’s hometown.  
  
The rag Tifa had been cleaning with dropped to the bar, her fingers numb with shock.

There weren’t that many people in Midgar who she’d known before leaving Nibelheim, and none of them had struck it so amazingly rich that they could have a Sepher for a younger brother.

What was going on?

Tifa began to feel a growing sense of curiosity; a desperate need to get to the bottom of this mystery, just so that she could finally stop asking herself questions about Kadaj and his theoretical older brother.

Ever since she’d left Nibelheim, Tifa had been training herself in in how to spot a problem in the making before it got a chance to blossom. Right now, Kadaj’s offer was a very big possible problem in the making… but for some reason she just wasn’t smart or cynical enough to turn him down flat.

“Let me go take care of one thing first, then I’ll meet your brother, I promise.” Tifa offered.  
  
Then she went to the backroom of Seventh Heaven and put on her gloves.  
  
While Tifa was tending bar she didn’t wear gloves. Sector Seven was a tough town, but not _that_ tough. It was only when she went out to do errands that she actually donned a pair of reinforced black fingerless gloves; they were subtle, but the materia slots at the wrists and the metal plates over the knuckles kept her from being mistaken for easy prey by anyone savvy enough to be dangerous.

Mixing drinks and serving food could be done with bare hands if you were careful enough, but some things, some things would always end up getting your hands dirty.

“All right, take me to him.” Tifa sighed after returning to the main room.  
  
Kadaj nodded eagerly, seemingly oblivious to just what the change in Tifa’s hand-wear implied. Without further ado, he stood up and motioned for her to follow. First outside of Seventh Heaven, and then into the dark alley between it and the neighboring building

Before she could inform Kadaj that she hadn’t been born yesterday, (even if this was the most polite lead up to a mugging she’d ever encountered) his mysterious sibling stepped out of the alley.

All of a sudden, everything somehow simultaneously made so much more, and yet so much less sense.

As she struggled to wrap her head around that impossibility, it happened…

Face to face with a Kadaj’s older brother, Tifa suddenly found herself being briefly dragged down by her own memories, like a swimmer caught in an undertow.

XXX XXX XXX

Flames flickered and crackled all around her... she didn’t feel hot... she didn’t even feel warm… she felt…. so dreadfully... cold...

“Hold on girl; you’re not gonna die, I promise you. You’re in a bad way, but my boss can do anything if he sets his mind to it!” Strong hands. Frantic blue eyes. Spiky black hair.  
  
“I … didn’t mean for any of this to happen… I’m sorry.” A rich baritone, tight with fury and regret. A flash of silver, shimmering at the edge of her vision.

XXX XXX XXX

The owner of Seventh Heaven looked better than she had the last time they’d met. Not that looking better than “on the cusp of death” was an especially difficult task.

“Tifa Lockhart. You... probably don’t remember me...”  
  
“You’re General Sephiroth; everyone remembers you. Reports of your death..?”  
  
“Were true enough." Excellent, ice broken, moving on.

"I have a mission that I could use your help with. You have a stake in this, but you should know that it _will_ land you on Shinra's bad side.”

In the blink of an eye, all uncertainty and confusion fell from her face and she eagerly grabbed his left hand with both of hers.

“I have some friends you need to meet, _now_.” Tifa insisted, leading Sephiroth back towards Seventh Heaven.  
  
/It is disturbing how quickly she’s agreed to this.\ Sephiroth couldn’t help but reflect.  
  
For the first time in his life; General Sephiroth consented to being dragged someplace more private by a pretty young woman, Kadaj following eagerly in their wake.

Once they’d gone back inside, she turned her attention to one of the Seventh Heaven’s two pinball machines and began to fish gil coins out of her skirt’s pockets. While she did so, Sephiroth read a small sign by the machine and did some mental math.

“You’re cheating your customers. It costs twenty five gil for one game, so your Seventh Heaven Special of seven games for three hundred and fifty gil is actually giving them fewer plays than if they just bought each play individually. Do you count on people not being able to figure that out?” Sephiroth pondered aloud while Tifa fed coin after coin into the machine.

“No, we want them to figure it out.” Tifa admitted, as the “Seventh Heaven Special” light flickered to life on the machine and then she hit the “start” button.  
  
A moment later the pinball machine started to descend into the floor taking Sephiroth and Tifa down with it.

Sephiroth was grudgingly impressed; secret passages were always a compromise between ease of accessibility and providing actual security, This one seemed to have hit the sweet spot of being easy to use, while at the same time extremely unlikely for a normal person to blunder into accidentally.  
  
“Kadaj, don’t break anything.” He warned his little brother who had been standing far enough back that he wasn’t being lowered downwards.  
  
The sinking pinball machine took Sephiroth into a hidden basement that was littered with boxes, machinery, computers, and a TV screen. It seemed that Shinra had failed to notice a great deal more about Tifa Lockhart than simply that she was still alive.

The room had a single occupant; General Sephiroth was tall enough that he normally dominated any room he entered, but he was fairly certain this man had several inches on him.

The dark-skinned man had clearly been in his share of fights; his opaque sunglasses and open vest did nothing to hide his collection of scars, to say nothing of his missing right hand. In its place, he had a light machine gun mounted just below the elbow, fed by a collection of sickle magazines.  
  
Said weapon was currently pointed directly at the secret room’s two new arrivals.

This didn’t dissuade Tifa from making introductions once the pinball machine finally stopped descending.  
  
“General Sephiroth, this is Barret Wallace. Barret, this is General Sephiroth.” She explained.  
  
The built in assault weapon switched its target, now instead of being pointed in the pairs’ general direction it was focused on Sephiroth’s center of mass.  
  
“You do realize that you just lead Shinra’s number one attack dog right into our hidden base?” Barret growled.

“It has been five years since Sephiroth did anything to help Shinra. He brought up the idea of picking a fight with them before I could. He could help us, a lot.” She insisted in turn.

Barret relaxed his posture ever so slightly, but not enough that Sephiroth wasn’t still getting ready to dodge a hail of bullets. The situation was made especially hard to predict because Sephiroth had no idea exactly which muscles Barret would need to tense for him to fire a gun that surely had no conventional trigger.

“I’ll admit she's got a point about you no longer being Shinra’s top troubleshooter, but I’d damn sure like to know what you actually _have_ been doing recently.”

“I was dead.”

“But you got better?”

“I was trapped in a twilight between life and death where I was able to communicate with all those who had come before; searching for the voices of those who would give meaning to my existence.” Sephiroth decided he might as well try the actual truth; it had worked with Kadaj.

“So you spent the last half a decade in the Lifestream? Is that what made you finally decide to wake up and smell Shinra’s bullshit?”

“Five years gave me a lot of time to think. I realized that a company which thinks sixteen year old children should serve as front-line combat troops didn’t have my best interests at heart.  
  
I've got more reason than anyone to hate Shinra. Sadly, I’ve also got more important things to do than get revenge on every single person who ever wronged me-”  
  
“More important?!” Barret stomped hard enough to shake a layer of dust off the wall.

“What you gotta deal with that’s more important that the whole Planet, General?” He mockingly threw Sephiroth’s (former?) title back in his face.

“All I’m trying to do is save as many lives as I can. Right now, I’ve already got one mission that deals with making good on my past mistakes. If you really believe that I can do something that will help the entire Planet, now's your chance to convince me.” Sephiroth had no intention of sidelining his current mission, but it couldn't hurt to hear them out.

“If you’ve personally been in the Lifestream, you have to realize what Shinra’s doing to it. The scholars of Cosmo Canyon have something they call the ‘Lifestream Theory,’ in short, the belief that Shinra’s reactors are slowly drinking it dry, one drop of mako at a time.” Tifa cut in, her tone gentler than Barret's.

“It ain’t just a theory either...” Barret grumbled as he finally lowered his weapon and stomped over to the room’s computer.

Its keyboard was clearly set up in something other than the standard “qwerty” layout, a practical choice if its primary used had only five fingers.  
  
“I can’t believe that you spent five years doing nothing but floating in the Lifestream, and still couldn’t hear the planet’s pain! That’s like living in a house that’s burning to the ground without ever smelling the smoke. I can’t believe I got to convince you of a truth that should be clearer to you than anyone else on the Planet! If you wanna see the cold hard numbers, well take a look...

Every year all across the Planet, farms buy more fertilizer, people buy more drugs to help them conceive, and more children are being born with birth defects. Well, all across the Planet… except for Wutai. Pretty funny, isn’t it? That the one place which doesn’t have a mako reactor squatting on top of it, is the one place where statistics don’t indicate that life itself seems to be getting harder and harder to come by?” Barret grumbled as the computer screen began to fill with various spreadsheets.

Sephiroth placed the laptop he’d been carrying with him gently down on top of a nearby cardboard box before taking some time to examine Barret’s figures.

The changes were slight, only a percent of a single percentage point every year… but they trended up too steadily for it just to be random chance. Everything seemed to be adding up, but he needed to be certain that this wasn’t simply a case of cherry-picked data.

“Can I double check your sources?”

“Be my guest.” Barret tone wasn’t especially inviting, but he stood back and allowed Sephiroth access to the computer.

After spending some more time on Moogle, Sephiroth was able to determine two important things: first, that Barret’s numbers were indeed all coming from reputable sources, and second, that there had been no reports of entire towns being slaughtered and burned to ground recently.

Whatever was going on, it seemed that _**he**_ wasn’t willing to show his hand yet… and Sephiroth couldn’t just go chasing after a foe he had no idea how to find, not when this important mission had just gotten dropped in his lap.  
  
For something that sounded so outlandish on the face of it, the Lifestream Theory fit perfectly with Sephiroth’s experiences. There was not a single an ounce of doubt in his mind that Shinra would be all too happy to strip mine the entire planet; after what they’d done to him, there was no line they wouldn’t cross in search of a profit.

It could also explain why he'd been unable to find his mother, no matter how hard he'd looked: because after she’d died, Shinra had sucked her essence out of the Lifestream and burned it away for a handful of gil!

Sephiroth had killed his mother… but the Shinra Electric Power Company had turned her into a light bulb.

With a cold smile, he turned back to Barret.  
  
“Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to enlist in your terrorist cell.”

End Chapter

  
AN: Just to be clear if you hadn’t figured it out yet, in this AU the Nibelheim Incident happened a “little” differently than canon. That’s why Tifa isn’t reacting to the sight of Sephiroth with righteous anger or fear for her life. It is also why Tifa’s personality will have developed slightly differently post Nibelheim. The existence of project “Second Silver” is likewise tied into those events.

As for Tifa’s eyes, there’s a saying about creating a party in a Star Wars RPG, “All Jedi or No Jedi”. It basically boils down to, if there’s a source of superpowers in your setting, it behooves you to make sure that either everyone in your party has access to said superpowers or no one does.

It sort of breaks my suspension of disbelief in Final Fantasy VII where the SOLDIER program is supposed to make people superhuman badasses, but Cloud (at least in the game, Advent Children is another story I’ll admit) who has gone through at the very least a jury rigged version of it, isn’t massively stronger than any of the characters like Tifa, Barret, Cid, or Yuffie who are completely baseline human beings.

So in the interest of world building, none of the protagonists in this story are going to be badass normals. The story of how Barret and Tifa go their enhancements will be revealed as Avalanche gets more comfortable around its two newest recruits.

As for the “Seventh Heaven Special”, well it was the best idea I could think of to explain how the Avalanche secret basement could exist and be accessed via pinball machine elevator, without risking customers accidentally blundering into it. It is certainly a better security set up than how the remake handles it, where it seems all you have to do is flip a switch on the underside of the machine.

I would be remiss if I don’t take a moment to mention that height in Final Fantasy Seven is stupid. If you look at the wiki it’ll tell you that Sephiroth is 6’1, and Barret is 6’6, with certain game materials rounding it down to 6’5. So far, so good.

If you watch certain scenes in the remake though Sephiroth is taller than Barret. Not only that, but according Crisis Core Zack is 6’3, and I sure as heck can’t find anything that’s ever portrayed Zack as being two inches taller than Sephiroth. In short (pun not intended), between Sephiroth or Barret who is taller is a somewhat convoluted mess that depends on which sources you’re looking at. I’m aware that this an issue with room for disagreement, let us move on.

Finally, I’m amazed that as far as I can tell, I seem to be the first one to come up with the “Sepher” concept. It has no real basis in any of the cannon stuff we’ve see in any of the games, movies, books, etc; but consider how many people cosplay as Sephiroth at anime conventions. Then ask yourself how many more people they would be doing that if Sephiroth was a real person, and also the equivalent of George Washington (or at least Dwight D. Eisenhower). Now try and tell me that in the world of Final Fantasy Seven, Sephiroth’s look/style wouldn’t constitute a marketable aesthetic (until he came back and tried to kill everyone of course...)


	5. I like Oreos and kitties, YES IN THAT ORDER!

“It’s the most, wonderful time, of the year...” Hummed Reno to himself as he all but danced into room B3 of Shinra HQ, home to the General Affairs Auditing Department.

He was being entirely sincere. Today truly was the highlight of his year, or at least the highlight of his fiscal quarter.  
  
Today was the day when the Shinra Electric Power Company General Affairs Auditing Department received feedback on its auditing!

“When the paperwork comes calling, and you’ve got every single reason to be of good cheer!” Reno continued to sing as he made a beeline for the “in” tray on Tseng’s desk.

Reno didn’t have a desk of his own in the room, but that didn’t matter. He’d earned this particular pleasure the same way he earned everything else; being so good at it that eventually everyone simply stopped making a fuss.  
  
He’d thrown himself into this particular task like a man with actual morals would collapse on a grenade in a maternity ward. He’d devoted countless hours of his life to it; checking spreadsheets, and even going so far as to actually review the company’s current policy documents! He’d made sure that not a single fraudulent expense item managed to avoid his notice.

In short... he’d actually done his job.

Lots of people at Shinra thought that accounting and auditing were boring but necessary tasks that someone would inevitably have to take care of, and they were fine with that, provided that someone wasn't them.

Reno felt those people were incurably lazy.

When approached with the right attitude, accounting could be an adventure! Reno embraced the files on Tseng’s desk like a long lost lover, and breathed deep; the smell of printer paper and dry ink somehow managing to come a close second to fermenting hops.  
  
“It’s the most, wonderful time, of the year...” Reno repeated to himself as he departed the meeting room, and headed for the elevator.

The Turk knew that he’d have to go up several dozen floors in order to get to the bottom of these documents!  
  
A lesser man might have ignored paperwork that didn’t directly effect their own job, but not Reno! No, never Reno!  
  
Because right now, the sheets of paper he held in his hands made him the second most powerful man on the Planet.

Not even a department head could overrule President Shinra’s findingson what was or was not an acceptable expense for the company, and Reno worked hard to make sure the President found plenty of things to object to!

“It's the hap-happiest season of all...” Reno crooned as the elevator carried him upwards.

Then there was a soft “ding”, and a moment later his nostrils were assaulted by a powerful aroma of antiseptic.

This was the only part of Reno’s auditing adventure that he didn’t completely enjoy, which was why he did it first. The Shinra Science Department was home to things that even the Turks didn’t like looking at or thinking about.  
  
Reno approached this mission with much the same mindset as he would wetwork: you got in, you found the target, you took care of business, and you got out. Reno made a beeline for the main laboratory, squinting his eyes to try and induce a mild case of tunnel vision.  
  
Once said squinted eyes had located his target, Reno unloaded on them without pity, empathy, hesitation or remorse.

“Department Head and Professor Simon Hojo of the Shinra Science Division, President Shinra has directed me to inform you that though this company is extremely diversified, we are at the end of the day running a power company, not a jewelry store. Therefore, the cost of your latest purchases; which for some reason you decided to make without waiting for approval first, will be deducted straight from your next paycheck, with an additional 10% fee for misappropriation of company finances.” Reno announced with the air of a herald reading the charges at a beheading.

With due haste, abetted by an arcing electrical discharge, Reno departed the room. To remain behind a single second longer was to give Professor Hojo had a chance to unleash a torrent of polysyllabic rage at: him, President Shinra, the world in general for not recognizing his genius, and all of the above for trying to thwart the scientific breakthrough of the century, if not millennium!  
  
That had been fun at first, but the longer it dragged on, the less funny it got. Somewhere around the point where he was insisting that Reno was a “chemically coddled child” the Turk began to suspect that Hojo might actually be so mad that he’d be willing to risk President Shinra’s wrath in order to punish the bearer of bad news.  
  
So, as enjoyable as it was to tweak the nose of someone who thought he was the smartest person on the Planet, Reno didn’t stick around to bask in the afterglow of that particular victory.

Besides, he had so many other important appointments today; it would be _rude_ to keep them waiting!  
  
XXX XXX XXX

“Department Head Scarlet of the Shinra Advanced Weapons Division, President Shinra has found some alarming figures in relation to the ‘Sister Ray’ we currently have installed in Junon. Given Shinra’s current uncontested hegemony over the world, he wonders why exactly we’re continuing to pay massive amounts of gil to maintain the combat readiness of a gigantic cannon that would be overkill even if used on a certain tourist trap.

He would appreciate it if within the next week you could present him with a report that justifies in greater detail why exactly we shouldn’t just break the thing apart and sell it for scrap metal… especially the light of how General Sephiroth managed to bring the Wutain War to a decisive conclusion before the Sister Ray could be completed, thus it has yet to provide ANYTHING of value to our organization.” Reno read out the announcement while keeping his eyes carefully locked on Scarlet’s blue ones.

Reno was not normally the sort of man to pass on an eyeful of proffered female flesh, but Scarlet _wanted_ men to look at her with an uncomfortable mix of desire and fear; refusing to take the bait was just another way of twisting the knife!

XXX XXX XXX  
  
“Excellent work on your latest expense report Department Head Palmer of the Shinra Space Division! President Shinra could find no items you requested that were not clearly and obviously linked to your department’s functions!” Reno announced while sticking his head to an office that was far far too large for the amount of work that was done in it.

In point of fact, a typical restroom stall might be somewhat oversized for the amount of work done in this office.  
  
This was the auditing equivalent of kicking a man while he was down, but Reno didn’t care.

Palmer made several times Reno’s salary without having to risk his life against terrorists, maniacs, and maniacal terrorists. In fact, Palmer, made several time Reno’s salary without doing anything at all, not even putting effort into hiding the fact that he wasn’t working!  
  
There was no Shinra Space Department, but for some reason- Reno suspected that he must have been golf buddies with President Shinra once upon a time- Palmer still hung around the office drinking his lard flavored tea and collecting paychecks.

Now, on one hand, Reno could appreciate anyone who had a good grift going; on the other hand though, all Palmer seemed to enjoy doing was complain about his lack of budget. In other words, asking for more work, even though he already had exactly the perfect amount of work- none- to deal with!

That was why Reno didn’t mind subtly reminding him that it had been years since he’d last even filed an expense report. Delivering that subtle reminder with great exuberance to anyone who might be in earshot was just another example of Reno going the extra mile to see a job done right!

XXX XXX XXX

“Department Head and General Heidegger of the Shinra Public Safety Division, I have some important news for you.” Reno began, before taking a moment to examine exactly what sort of mood Heidegger was in.  
  
Though Reno had no worries for his own personal safety at the moment, he was very much aware that saying the wrong thing might cause the bureaucratic cold war that currently existed between Public Safety Department and the Investigation Sector of the General Affairs Department to get real hot, real fast.

There had been a brief time when Heidegger had managed to weasel his way into being in a position where he could give Reno orders, and Reno had not cared for that; both on principle and because said orders were profoundly idiotic. That particular crisis had only ended up being resolved by the mutual agreement that the Turks would follow any orders Heidegger gave them, on the provision that Heidegger would never again actually give them any orders.  
  
In the wake of saving the world from some eco-terrorist nut job, Tseng had gone from strength to strength; launching a brilliant inter-corporation hostile takeover by having the Investigation Sector of the General Affairs Department first muscle in on, then completely absorb Shinra’s Auditing Department. Not only had this greatly increased the “soft power” that the Turks could be wield within the company, but it served as an unspoken threat. Any further encroachment on the freedom of the Turks to disregard orders not given to them by the President would be responded to with yet more aggressive mergers.

Nobody (least of all Tseng) wanted Tseng to hold bureaucratic power equivalent to the other major Department Heads, but the possibility was out there. If they had to, the Investigation Sector would continue to absorb other minor departments (per Tseng’s “big board”, the company’s Shipping, Receiving, and Interoffice Parcel Delivery Department was scheduled to be the next innocent caught in the crossfire) until there was no way to run Shinra without playing nice with the Turks.  
  
In short, there were times when Reno privately pondered if maybe, just maybe, despite being the most profitable corporation in all of human history, that the Shinra Electric Power Company was failing to “embrace its core competencies” (whatever the hell that meant). Such thoughts were typically prompted by reflection on how when he heard the phrase “the enemy”; Reno didn’t think of Wutai and its ninjas, he didn’t think of Avalanche and their tree-huggers, he thought of General Heidegger and the Public Safety Department who couldn’t leave well enough alone and simply let the Turks do their job.  
  
So after taking another moment to look General Heidegger straight in his eyes, Reno got to work.

“The President wished me to inform you that your request for additional mako allocation in order to create another 1,000 SOLDIERs will have to wait until you’re able to prove that you can achieve some success against the company’s enemies with the ones you already have.” Reno announced calmly and dispassionately.

Then with all but military precision he strode out of the room.  
  
He even waited patiently for the elevator doors to completely close before flipping off Heidegger with both hands.

XXX XXX XXX

There was one stop left, the Urban Development Department. Of all the ones he was visiting today, it had the smallest budget, and was led by a man with the nerves of a long tailed cat in a preschool full of rocking chairs.

In short, it was the perfect place to round out Reno’s little bad news cruise.

“Mr. Tuesti, I’m here with feedback from President Shinra on your recent expense report!” Reno announced and was sorely tempted to use his phone to blast Toccata and Fugue in D minor throughout the entire office just to drive the point home.

Reeve Tuesti looked up from his work with the strained expression and sleepless eyes of a man who’d seen too much and didn’t drink enough to let him routinely forget it.  
  
“Yes?” Reeve answered, a slight quiver in his voice.

“President Shinra has decided to approve your most recent expense request of a five hundred million gil for the purposes of building a robot cat. He also gave a thumbs up to the billion gil for a gigantic robot moogle for said robot cat to ride around on, with both of these expenditures being for the purpose of ‘improving office morale’.

In fact, I am pleased to report that they are already working; morale has shown a remarkable uptick in the General Affairs Auditing Department ever since we received your expense report!” Reno declared, and then was out of the room before Reeve had a chance to respond.  
  
Holding the paperwork close to his chest, Reno smiled so wide it hurt.

He did a perfect job of completely spotting each and every single possible flaw in every department head’s paperwork…. and then he’d hide Reeve’s properly marked expense reports underneath his suit. At the end of the day, he’d take it home, push aside a locked filing cabinet he kept filled to the brim with interoffice birthday party announcements, pry up his floorboards, retrieve an ever-fuller briefcase from its hidden storage compartment, disengage the anti-tampering device rigged to incinerate the contents, and deposit the report for posterity.

What actually wound up on President Shinra’s desk was the bureaucratic equivalent of an otherwise blank sheet of paper saying that there was nothing at all wrong with Urban Development’s latest request. This inevitably lead to President Shinra (who was _far_ too busy running the world to read his own company’s policies or paperwork) approving whatever Reeve wanted.

Reno didn’t do it for reasons as mundane as Reeve having been able to buy his favor with a couple bottles of (admittedly exceptional) liquor. Nor was he doing it to get an easy mark into a situation where they were hopelessly indebted to him. No, Reno did it because he was performing an experiment, the likes of which even Professor Hojo's twisted mind might not have contrived.

Reeve was the one idiotically honest man in a position of power at the Shinra Electric Power Company. So what happened when he discovered that the company was no longer paying attention to how he chose to spend his money?  
  
As of today the answer seemed to be “he builds a robot cat” (and gigantic robot moogle for the cat to ride, but you couldn’t have the moogle without the cat; that would just be silly) but Reno was sure that Reeve could push his skills at scamming an organization he obviously hated from the bottom of his heart far further. He had high hopes that one day Reeve would be committing feats of financial malfeasance that even Reno himself could never have conceived of!

This, this was just phase one of the process, and it wasn’t like robotic cats grew on trees. It made Reno’s eyes fill with tears to think that his protege was coming along so quickly!

XXX XXX XXX

  
“Good morning, Tifa!” Jessie Rasberry chirped as she breezed into Seventh Heaven.

The only other female member of Avalanche took a look around the bar and promptly noticed one major change since she’d last visited.

“Tifa, who is the new waiter? Is he your friend? He is _just_ your friend, right? Are you guys close?” Jessie chattered at Tifa, sneaking frequent glances at the silver-haired youth.

Tifa rolled her eyes, having expected more or less exactly this situation. Jessie was a genius with technology, but definitely had her quirks.

“Jessie, you looked sort of funny walking in here; do you think you might have a pebble in one of your shoes?” Tifa threw Jessie a meaningful look.  
  
Although all of Sector Seven had good reasons to dislike Shinra, that didn’t instantly translate to all of them supporting Avalanche. It didn’t even mean that those who did support Avalanche on a theoretical level would refuse to sell them out if Shinra offered a big enough bounty.

That was why Barret had established a series of codewords that the group members could use while talking to each other in public.

“Pebble” was the codeword for “do not discuss Avalanche business, someone in this room is not a member”. Barret had plans to fully initiate Sephiroth and his brother into the group by going on a mission with Sephiroth tonight; but until they proved trustworthy he wanted to keep the two from learning anything more about his cell.

Jessie put her acting skills to good use, and only someone who knew her as well as Tifa did could have hoped to spot the glint of comprehension that briefly flickered across her face.

It just was too bad that Tifa didn’t also have a codeword to tell Kadaj “she’s a little boy crazy but a good friend, don’t break her heart or I’ll break your nose”.  
  
“I’ll make sure to check them later. So, who is he?”

“I’m Kadaj.” The ‘he’ in question all too happily introduced himself.

“Kadaj doesn’t have anyplace else to go, so I’m going to look after him for a while.”  
  
“Anything I can do to help you feel more at home?” Jessie eagerly offered.

Luckily, Tifa had already come up with a plan for exactly this situation. There _was_ something Kadaj could do to help Avalanche without even realizing it, and it would keep him from being underfoot when Marlene got back from school.

Barret had been VERY clear on how he didn’t want either Sephiroth or Kadaj to meet Marlene until they’d proved their devotion to the cause.  
  
“Jessie, weren’t you just telling me that you had the next batch of water filters ready to move, but were worried that some of our customers might try to give us the run around? Just take Kadaj with you.

Kadaj, do you think can do that thing your big brother does with his eyes that scares people?”

“I can sure try!”

Judging by his current look of wide eyed eager to please exuberance, Tifa did not expect great things from Kadaj’s career as a street tough. On the other hand, he wasn’t actually going to be shaking down people for money, only making sure that Jessie was paid what she was owed.

“Just so I know, why are these water filters important?” Kadaj added after a moment of reflection.

“People who live below the Plate need water just like everyone else, but they’ve got no way to complain if Shinra cuts corners by supplying them with stuff that is barely potable.” Jessie explained, eager to discuss her inventions.

“That’s not very nice of them.” Kadaj interjected.

It was an obvious and effortless quip to make... but he sounded oddly sincere.

“So that’s why I’ve been working on making better water filters. If Shinra won’t bother to properly filtrate the stuff they sell us, then we’ll just have to do it ourselves. My new filters can all but completely eliminate the rotten egg smell that most of the water comes with, countless different types of particulate contamination and also come with a built in cooling device. I’m actually really proud of that part, because Shinra seems to think it’s perfectly fine to have water come out the tap at around halfway to boiling.”

“Smart.” Kadaj agreed.  
  
“All right, you two; have fun, play nice.” Tifa instructed, hoping that they were able to handle this mundane errand.  
  
If they somehow wound up having trouble with something as simple as this, it’d bode ill for Barret’s plans to integrate Sephiroth and Kadaj fully into Avalanche; Planet knew they needed the muscle.

XXX XXX XXX

“Firion, this is Kadaj, Kadaj, this is Firion; he runs the local items store.”  
  
Firion took one look at Jessie, then at Kadaj, and seemed to pout slightly.  
  
“Aw, and here I’d hoped Tifa would be the one bringing me my replacement.” He chuckled to himself.  
  
“You and every other guy in Sector Seven between the age of thirteen and dead. Sorry, you’re going to have to settle for little old me today.” Jessie chuckled right back.  
  
“So, who exactly is Mr. Kadaj?”

“I’m in charge of collecting money for Jessie and looking after it!” Kadaj beamed.

One water filter installation later, Kadaj and Jessie exited the item shop with some additional gil in Kadaj’s pockets. This was an easy job when everyone was so friendly!

  
XXX XXX XXX

Ms. Marle who apparently owned a small collection of sleeping rooms was also quite nice, and so Jessie didn’t need Kadaj’s help to deal with her. No, all she had to do was live up to her end of the bargain and focus on installing the new filtration system.  
  
That let Kadaj free to just stand around and… well stand around.  
  
Then the knocking started.  
  
It was very loud, almost as if somehow the knocking was coming from inside Kadaj’s head instead of simply being relayed to it by his ears.

So far as he could tell, the knocking was coming from the rightmost door on the second floor of Marle’s establishment. The longer Kadaj waited and did nothing the louder the knocking got.

He couldn’t understand why someone would keep continuously knocking on their own door, shouldn’t they just be able to open it? Whatever was going on, Kadaj refused to simply let his ears continue to be assaulted by that hideous knocking.

So he raced up to the door that the knocking was coming from and opened it.

A man collapsed at Kadaj’s feat.

He wore a black cloak that covered most of his body, but one section near his left shoulder had been torn, revealing that someone had tattooed the number 49 on said shoulder.

“Reunion...” The man whispered.

Kadaj’s head swam.

He wasn’t standing in the streets of Midgar anymore… he wasn’t standing anywhere.

He couldn’t see any part of his body, he could only see a small parade of people dressed in threadbare black cloaks, trudging their way through some sort strange sort of white fluff. Whatever was going on, it didn’t look pleasant in the slightest.

“Reunion… Reunion...” One of black figures groaned.

All of a sudden he was back in Midgar.  
  
Kadaj still had no idea what the man was talking about. Kadaj honestly wasn’t sure if the man himself knew what he was talking about.

Whatever was going on, there was no reason to just leave him laying around on the floor.

Kadaj gently picked up 49 and carried him back to his bed.

“Reunion.” Panted 49 once more.

Kadaj’s mind briefly drifted back to his first encounter with Sephiroth.

“You’re right… after all is said and done, everyone deserves a reunion.” Kadaj tried to reassure him.

To his amazement it worked.

49’s body seemed to relax slightly when previously he’d been a strange mix of both incredibly tense and yet at the same time entirely limp.  
  
“Re-un-ion...” Kadaj could still hear the words being whispered behind him as he closed the door and left 49 alone to sleep off whatever illness he was in the grips of.

XXX XXX XXX

As opposed to Firion and Marle, Leon; who ran the weapon shop, did not seem to be quite so nice.

“Hey, that last filter you sold me didn’t do shit!” Leon shouted at Jessie.

In fact, though Kadaj hated to think the worst of people; he was starting to consider the possibility that Leon was rather mean.  
  
“What? You really mean that? Look I promise my new version also comes with a built in olfactometer so that you can see what kind of a job it is doing!” Jessie protested.

“Save your excuses and get out.”

Jessie sighed heavily and shook her head.

“If you don’t want to buy a new one, that’s your choice. That said, Tifa told me that you bought your last filtration device from us on credit. Since your store seems to be doing pretty good business, I’d like you to pay Kadaj the money you owe us.” Jessie insisted, planting her hands on her hips.

“You think I’ve got something to fear from a punk ass bitch like him? I bet there’s not even a real sword in that sheath.” Leon scoffed.

Kadaj had just been standing there his hands at his at sides, waiting for Jessie to sort out matters of payment, but now he seemed to be directly involved in the conversation.

“Souba is a real sword.” Kadaj insisted, as he drew the blade in question.  
  
All of a sudden the weapon shop became much quieter.  
  
“Do you see this?” Kadaj asked, using his right hand to point to the gap between Souba’s blades.  
  
“Yes, I see it!” Leon whimpered, sweat trickling down his brow.  
  
“Kadaj, I don’t think he’s seeing what you think he’s seeing...” Jessie suggested in a strangled voice.  
  
Kadaj tilted his head to the side, wondering what was going on that he wasn’t smart enough to figure out. Then he carefully tilted his weapon to the side so that Jessie could take a good look at Souba.

“He said that Souba wasn’t a real sword; so I wanted to show him its materia slots.” Kadaj explained awkwardly, adjusting his grip so that Jessie would be able to see them clearly.  
  
Kadaj noticed that Jessie was squinting, but he wasn’t surprised, lots of people had trouble seeing things that he could.  
  
“Are those six empty materia slots, all linked?”  
  
“Yeah, that’s what the doctors told me. They never actually gave me any materia, though...” Kadaj admitted.

“This is soooo much more important than a two hundred gil tab. Biggs need to see this, now!” Jessie grabbed his arm and hauled him out of the room.

Kadaj didn’t see why it couldn’t wait until after he’d convinced Leon to pay Jessie the money he owed her, but since it was Jessie’s money he supposed she should get to make that particular call.  
  
XXX XXX XXX  
  
As it turned out Jessie’s friend Biggs was actually hanging out in a room on the weapon shop’s second floor. He was also accompanied by another man who Jessie introduced as Wedge.

Both Biggs and Wedge wore red headbands, which was probably part of the official uniform of the neighborhood watch they belonged to.  
  
She’d also said something about how she hoped to “get the pebble rolling” by introducing Kadaj to the other two, which was struck Kadaj as a weird turn of phrase, but then every phrase was sorta weird the first time you heard it...

“I’m telling you, his sword has six linked materia slots!” Jessie insisted.  
  
Once again, Kadaj didn’t see what the big fuss was; it wasn’t like he had six materia, let alone six materia in pairs that needed to be linked in order to be fully effective.

“Six slots? Linked? I’ve heard that four with only two of them linked is the standard weapon for third class SOLDIERs. Hell, the only other weapon I’ve heard of that supposedly has six linked slots is Masamune!” Biggs gasped.

“Masamune does have six slots; I know my brother’s sword.” Kadaj wasn’t going to let anyone’s insult his brother, even if only by implying he lied about what his weapon was capable of.

“Wait, say that again…?” Wedge suddenly protested.

“Masamune does have six slots; I know my brother’s sword?” Kadaj repeated his words hesitantly, in case there had been something wrong with how he’d said it the first time.

“Okay, we’re gonna break this down real slow. Can we start with letting me actually see your sword?” Biggs pleaded.  
  
Kadaj just stood there for a few moments, the fingers of his left hands twitching uncertainly.  
  
“I’m not supposed to give it to anyone. Well not anyone other than the doctors….” Kadaj admitted as he carefully thought the matter through.

“Just think of me as a sword doctor, I make weapons better.”  
  
Kadaj considered that for a moment, then drew Souba and handed it over, but he made sure not to look away or blink. Souba was important to him, especially now that he was out of the lab; there wouldn’t be anyone to just hand him a new sword if he lost his current one.

Biggs began to inspect the sword more closely, especially the gap between its blades.

“It’s like he said, six materia slots in three linked sets. Sephiroth’s Masamune or Genesis’ Rapier, that’s the class of weapon we’re talking about... Wherever the hell you got this thing; I’m amazed there aren’t a squad of Turks bursting in through the windows to take it back.” Biggs murmured.  
  
“Can we please go back to the part where we were talking about Masamune, General Sephiroth’s sword, and you mentioned your brother? Because that sure makes it sound like...” Wedge interrupted.  
  
“General Sephiroth is my older brother. I’m gonna be a hero just like him!” Kadaj interrupted Wedge’s interruption, happy to clear up the matter now that he actually understood where the confusion lay.  
  
There was a very long protracted silence, making Kadaj wonder if he’d done something wrong again, like when he’d tried to show his materia slots to Leon.  
  
“Sure… lets go with that. Kadaj, the neighborhood watch group could really use someone with a sword like this. I mean you know how to use it right?” Biggs offered.

“I’ve spent a lot of time training with it.” Kadaj reassured him.

At least it certainly qualified as a lot of time if you measured it as a percentage of exactly how long Kadaj had been alive.  
  
“Well then Jessie, why don’t you take our new hero and go on a patrol through Scrap Boulevard with him? We’ve been getting reports about lots of monster activity there recently, but we’ve been too busy with… other things to properly investigate them.” Biggs suggested.

That sounded like a great idea!

"Slaying monsters is one of my favorite parts of being a hero!”  
  
Granted, his last “monster hunt” had concluded with exactly zero monsters killed, but he had found Sephiroth, so clearly he must have been doing something right! If he ended up failing to kill any monsters but finding another missing family member, well he’d consider that a successful mission any day of the week!

End Chapter

  
AN: First off, yes I am cheating with this chapter’s song lyric. I would normally avoid paraphrasing or in any way altering my chapter title song lyrics, but if you know the original song lyric for this chapter you can probably understand why I altered it.

Toccata and Fugue in D minor is piece by Johann Sebastian Bach, you might recognize its opening bars from like every ominous pipe organ you’ve ever heard played in a horror movie, Phantom of the Opera to pick one example (not) at random.

I am aware that in Advent Children Souba/Kadaj’s swords is depicted as having no materia slots in it, hence why he needs to insert a materia directly into his arm… however the heck that is supposed to work. That said, in Advent Children, Kadaj and his siblings weapons came from…. ????? Oh yeah, Advent Children never established where any of Kadaj, Loz or Yazoo’s weapons came from.

In this AU where Souba was made by Shinra and given to Kadaj expressly for the purpose of molding him to be Sephiroth-2.0, of course it is going to have the best materia slot configuration they can manage.

Also, in the remake materia are presented as being around the size of a baseball, they more or less completely fills the hand of a person holding one. This is all fine and reasonable when you’re dealing with weapons like the Buster Sword or Masamune, but how could any of Tifa’s gloves possibly have room for multiple materia?  
  
So in the interest of creating a version of reality that hangs together a little better, I’m going to say that in this story your average materia is actually only the size of a D20, that is why there are room for six of them to be slotted in between Souba’s two blades.  
  
Anyway, this chapter marks the end of what has effectively been our “prologue”, you can probably guess what Sephiroth and Barret will be doing together next chapter.


	6. You got a job to do, you better to do it right, and the right way, is with the left brain’s might!

“You know, you could have stopped all of this.” Barret’s rough grumble cut through the silence of the empty car.

“Security...?” Sephiroth let the query dangle with a questioning look; this didn’t seem like a good conversation to have on Shinra territory, however alone they might seem to be.

“There’s a reason I waited until we got topside to have this talk. That rust-bucket we road up from Sector Seven had more bugs than a swamp, but these ‘Shinra Deluxe’ models aren’t nearly as heavily monitored.”  
  
Sephiroth had not enjoyed his train ride out of Sector Seven, it’d involved standing shoulder to shoulder in a crowded compartment while crouching lest he bang his head on the roof. Once they’d actually gotten above the Plate he and Barret had switched to a more upscale form of public transportation. Now, not only was Sephiroth able to sit down, but the two actually had the entire compartment to themselves.

“So as I was saying, seven years ago, you could have stopped all this. Back when everyone turned out to celebrate Shinra’s wonderkid, General Sephiroth. The ‘man’ who could humble Godo Kisaragi, but was still too young to drink a beer. The celebration was so big that they even had the parade go through Lower Midgar.

There you were, an entire army that followed your orders, an entire city that loved you. Right then, you could have crushed Shinra in a way Wutai never dreamed of.”

“You’re right. I could have. I didn’t. Were you there to see it yourself?”

“I hadn’t moved to Midgar yet, but Shinra broadcast it far and wide. Besides, they love to replay it every February 20th to celebrate, like clockwork.”

Sephiroth sighed heavily and looked out a train window, not that the city of Midgar made for especially pleasant scenery to watch.

“They’re still celebrating my victory parade five years after I ‘died’? Just proves Shinra never really considered it ‘my’ victory.”

“Care to explain why you didn’t? Because you missed your one chance for a glorious revolution; ever since then, the rest of us have had to do the job that you wouldn’t.”

Sephiroth took his eyes off of the unending sea of gunmetal gray that was flickering by outside to focus on the dark glasses in front of him.

“Because when I first signed up, I thought I could make the Planet a better place by ending the war. I didn’t fight for Shinra; I fought for _Midgar_. So that every orphan in the city didn’t end up seeing the sun for the first time with one gun in their hands and three pointed at their back in case they tried to run.

I wanted to create peace for Midgar. I believed that it would be possible for this city to know true peace with Shinra in charge. Surely you’ve made at least one mistake in your life, Mr. Wallace?” Sephiroth answered icily.

For just a brief moment Sephiroth watched emotions chase each other across the other man’s face, before the bluff mask settled back into place with a grunt; it seemed he’d struck a nerve.

Before Barret got a chance to respond Sephiroth heard the sound of sliding metal. Looking in its direction he discovered that the door to their compartment was being opened.  
  
A well dressed man in a black business suit and red tie entered the compartment. Both Sephiroth and Barret gazed at the new comer. He in turn looked at the tall man with silver hair and a sword, then the even taller man who had a gun for an arm.  
  
Still not uttering a single sound, the man took a step back and closed the compartment door behind him, evidently deciding he’d find somewhere else to spend his commute.

“I bet Midgar looked mighty peaceful when you were looking down on it from Shinra HQ. Under the Plate though...” Barret eventually resumed the conversation.  
  
“Under the Plate every day is a war for survival.” Sephiroth interrupted him.

Barret’s entire body seemed to tense up for a moment, until he broke the tension with a sudden laugh.  
  
“Well look at that! Who’da thought that Shinra’s prize silver guard dog would actually have some city grunge on him? So tell me, did you actually like getting dirty, or were you doing it just to spite the bastards given how much they loved to fancy you up?” He shook his head with a grin that seemed completely genuine.

“So what exactly is this ‘mission’ you wanted my help with?”

Barret had been extremely cagey back in Seventh Heaven, only telling Sephiroth that it was a mission which he would normally have wanted five people for. ‘But if you’re all you’re cracked up to be,’ he’d said, ‘then just the two of us ought to cut it.’

He took a moment to look out his own window; in addition to the multiple magazines he had already attached to his weapon, there were several more strewn about his person, just to make absolutely sure he couldn’t possibly run out of ammunition.

Sephiroth marveled at the sheer absurdity of Shinra letting a man who looked like he had access to more ammunition than the average quartermaster use public transportation. Then again, those same guards also hadn’t batted an eye at him and Masamune… perhaps the issue was less one of policy than of enforcement.

“I may never have led an army, but I’ve learned a thing or two about successful insurgency. Rule number one: compartmentalization; everyone knows enough to do their job, and as little more as possible. We aren’t at our stop yet, so you’ll have to wait.”

Sephiroth’s fingers stroked the white card in his pocket; the fake ID, made by someone in Barret’s cell, was the only equipment Avalanche had furnished him with for this mission.

Barret had also made it clear that the card was only good for a one-way trip. If the mission succeeded, he would get back in touch with his mysterious accomplice; only then would Sephiroth be able to return to Sector Seven.  
  
That wasn’t much of a threat to Sephiroth; he could navigate the steel jungle of Midgar without ever setting foot on its streets. All the same, he actually approved of Barret’s operational paranoia: if you were going to try and fight an organization as large as Shinra, even if it was also one as lazy as Shinra, then you needed to do everything you could to eliminate risks.

While it might be mildly irritating to be kept in the dark at the moment, it was easily counterbalanced by his relief at having competent allies.

“You don’t trust me enough to tell me where we’re going, or what we’ll do once we get there. You can’t pass up the resource I represent, but you’re not prepared to put any of your people’s lives in my hands. The question remains: why are we here at all?  
  
Barret just smiled and thumped his remaining hand against his chest.

“Being a leader means that you’re the first one into battle and the last one out of it. If you’re playing us straight, you could be a gamechanger, not gonna pretend otherwise. So… here I am. Can’t sleep on the opportunity, but it’s _my_ call, so _I_ shoulder the risk.”  
  
To his surprise Sephiroth could feel a slight smile tugging at his lips. He and Barret might not agree on much, but it seemed they both viewed leadership as coming with the exact same responsibilities.

Basking in the discovery of that shared belief, the two of them were able to sit there in silence as the train rolled down the tracks.

Like all good things though, eventually the silence had to come to an end.

“Okay, we’re gonna be getting out at the next stop. Our target is the Sector One Mako Reactor, and we’re gonna turn its mako pump into a pile of slag.” Barret finally explained.

“Understood. Resistance?” Now that Barret was being forthcoming, Sephiroth found it surprisingly easy to slip back into a briefing cadence: say little, hear much, remember everything.

“Shinra’s gonna be serving up something special for your reunion tour, Silver. See, since Tifa is convinced you’re the real deal, I figured that we might as well take advantage of it; I had Avalanche broadcast an announcement to the entire city that we were going to knock out a mako reactor tonight. Granted, I didn’t go so far as to say which one....” Barret’s teeth flashed in a feral grin.

That didn’t fit. Asymmetrical warfare relied on misdirection and exploitation. You didn’t forewarn a superior opponent. Unless…

“Hm. Show of force?”

Barret leaned back, his grin growing wider.

“Word is, Wutai once established artillery batteries, peeled these guns off the rest of their line, for the sole purpose of firing them at you. Not because as Shinra’s most famous general you’d always be someplace important, but because they figured it’d be their best chance to actually kill you. Now, maybe that’s just more Shinra propaganda….”

Sephiroth shook his head.

“All true. It was hell on my administrative staff. Eventually had to hike solo through the mountains for a week, give them something to shoot at while my second infiltrated to silence the guns.”

“And you didn’t go yourself because?”

“Infiltration mission. All of Wutai knows to shoot when they see green.”

Barret gave a grim chuckle.

“So, like I was saying, you’re not an easy man to kill. With Shinra having to spread its reinforcements out between eight different reactors, we should still be able to get the job done fairly easily. Especially since this is gonna be our first operation above the Plate.”  
  
Sephiroth could see the wisdom to it. If this Avalanche cell had never taken the fight to Upper Midgar before, it was possible that Shinra wouldn’t even bother to reinforce their reactors. Unlikely, but possible.

“Just the pump?”

Even though Barret’s sunglasses were too dark for Sephiroth to see through, he got the distinct impression that Barret was rolling his eyes at him.

“Explosives don’t just come raining out of the sky for us, and the reactor ain’t exactly small. Besides, there’s no way we could take out an entire reactor without doing major collateral damage to the rest of Sector One. On top of that, the sudden loss of power could lead to all sorts of bad shit, like if a hospital hasn’t been keeping their backup generator up to snuff…  
  
Nah, we take out just the mako pump, and the reactor grinds to a halt all the same, but over the course of a few hours once it runs out of mako to process. Then Shinra will be left with nothing but a big impotent hunk a junk sitting around.

That’s just stage one of course. You see, everyone in Midgar knows that Shinra sucks, but they’re too afraid to do anything about it. Avalanche is gonna teach ‘em how to be fearless; by taking away the one thing Shinra has to offer people, stability. When the lights go out in Midgar, it’ll be lights out for the Shinra Electric Power Company as well.”

As strategies went it wasn’t half bad. Shinra was simply too vast to imagine it being toppled by a handful of malcontents, but if the entire city of Midgar, or even just a significant portion of it, rose up in open revolt, then the rebels might have a chance.  
  
“Avalanche has come a long way from where it was five years ago. I found their previous methods of ‘protecting the planet’… excessive.” Sephiroth admitted.

Avalanche’s first iteration had tried to fire the Mako Cannon at Midgar, Sephiroth had stopped them. There weren’t many things he’d done in the service of Shinra he was proud of… in fact, that was probably the only one.

“Fuhito may have been a genius for helping to discover the Lifestream Theory, but he had one track mind. So long as I’m in charge, Avalanche is about protecting humanity, not ending it. Things gotta change if we’re gonna have a Planet to live on, but what’s the point in saving the world if there’s no one around to enjoy it?

As for coming a long way in five years, it’s surprising what a man can accomplish when he’s actually doing things rather than just hiding his head in the sand.”

XXX XXX XXX

  
As the train pulled into the station, Barret quickly ran through what remained of his mission briefing.

“There’s one last thing we need to go over: if Shinra hasn't beefed up security at this station then, standard procedure calls for there to be two guards who will check everyone's paperwork before any passengers can get near the reactor.

Our tech wizard got us forged rail passes, but that’s the end of the line when it comes to their help. We’ll need to deal with those guards ourselves.”  
  
Barret turned his attention back to his right “hand” doing one last round of checks to make sure it was in perfect working order.

“Now, this baby has more firepower than they can handle, but she also makes a fair amount of noise. So why don't you take that oversized kitchen knife of yours and...”  
  
He trailed off when he realized that he was alone in the train car.

“Guy with a sword that big has no right being that damn quiet.” Barret huffed to himself in annoyance.

XXX XXX XXX  
  


Another day, another hundred gil, that was what this job amounted to for Craig and his fellow Shinra troopers. Luckily, said day was almost over; this was the last train of the evening to reach the Sector One Mako Reactor before his shift ended.  
  
“You take the front, Daniel; I’ll take the back. Meet you in the middle.” Craig suggested, reiterating their standard sweep procedure for the who knew how many-th time.  
  
This looked like it should be a fairly quick sweep since it didn’t seem like anyone was actually formally disembarking from the train; all they had to do was make sure nobody was trying to sneak off.  
  
The two parted ways, but before Craig could even make his way to the train’s rear he heard a wordless scream of fright that terminated with shocking abruptness.  
  
“Dan? What was that? You alright?” Craig called out as he braced his gun against his shoulder and began to slowly creep back towards the train’s engine.  
  
“I'm afraid not.” Answered a voice that froze the blood in his veins.

Craig spun on his heel and stared, aghast, at the ghost standing by the far end of the car.  
  
“Ohhh shittttt!” Craig moaned as he thumbed his assault rifle to full auto and didn’t so much “pull” as “yank” the trigger.

The sad thing was it didn’t even make a difference.

The silver haired man didn’t walk, didn’t run, he just... wasn't there anymore.  
  
One moment he was over twenty feet away, the next Craig’s rifle had been neatly cut in half; he might as well have been shooting blanks.  
  
He jerked back, dropping the gun, only to be stopped short by a hand at the back of his neck. He bounced off the side of the car, black boots just discernible at the edge of his swimming vision.  
  
"The buddy system isn't there to get sweeps done faster," a rich baritone voice chided.

Craig felt cold, lethargic.

"It's there to get them done safely." There was a flash of light, and then Craig felt nothing at all.

XXX XXX XXX  
  
“You planning on turning every Shinra shithead we come across into a popsicle?” Barret demanded as he disembarked from the train.  
  
“Dead bodies draw attention.”  
  
“So will your Goon Gelato.”

Sephiroth sighed and began to drag the two guards on board the train before shoving them into overhead luggage racks.  
  
“Hibernating bodies are easier to hide; no stink of death.” He countered, closing the luggage rack compartments to keep the guards out of sight.  
  
Confident the two wouldn’t thaw out and start sounding the alarm for at lest a few hours, Sephiroth departed from the train a second time.  
  
“What’s the matter Silver, still afraid to bite the hand that feeds you?”  
  
Despite all the extensive modifications that his body had gone through, Sephiroth’s teeth looked completely normal. That just meant he had to try harder to convey the aura of a snarling predator when he turned to face Barret.  
  
“After what Shinra has done to me, I won’t just bite their hand; I’ll tear out their throat. That doesn’t mean I like stepping on ants."

Sephiroth turned his attention to the Sector One Mako Reactor; the huge structure utterly dominated the skyline, out by the edge of the plate. Sephiroth had never really stopped to think about just how massive the reactors were. Even for him, this might prove a bit of a challenge…

He dismissed the concern with slight shake of his head; it wasn’t as if the reactor itself was going to come to life and attack him. Shinra had wanted to project an aura of omnipotent invincibility, so they'd built the reactors big and baroque. He’d enjoy shattering that aura tonight.

The two of them took off running and didn’t stop until they reached the reactor’s main entrance.  
  
“My tech wizard was able to find some old reactor blueprints, but if you’ve got a better idea of what is waiting for us behind those doors, I’m all ears...” Barret groaned when he caught up.

“I can count on one hand the number of times I've been in a Midgar reactor. Floor plan is unlikely to have changed much, but as far as security, anything I know is five years out of date."

“Anything useful you _can_ do?”

Sephiroth pressed a hand to the door.  
  
Tendrils of white frost spread out from his hand tracing a spiderweb pattern across the door. Then each individual vein began to grow larger and thicker, until they eventually met each other, leaving the door completely covered in ice.  
  
At that point Sephiroth took few steps back, knowing that he’d want some momentum..

He got a running start and jumped through the door, shattering it into countless frozen pieces.

As he breached the door, he noted the positions of the lasers defense turrets flanking it. As he slid to a stop between them, Masamune flicked out twice, almost perfunctorily. As the business ends of the ruined turrets dropped to the floor, he arched one eyebrow at his new collaborator.  
  
"I can make an entrance."

XXX XXX XXX  
  
Things went surprisingly smoothly after that.

  
Guard hounds pumped full of steroids were put down, a laser defense security system was overloaded with magical lighting, more defense cannons positioned out of sword reach were suppressed by Barret’s gun arm, and a sweeper combat robot was reduced to its component parts.  
  
All told, elapsed time from breach to objective was just under ten minutes.

  
“All right Silver, lets see just how sharp those teeth are...” As he spoke, Barret reached into his jacket and pulled out a bundle of wires and munitions about the size of his fist.  
  
A single eyebrow rose ever so slightly upwards in surprise.  
  
“That’s an interesting psychological two-fer. On one hand, you’re welcoming me into the organization by showing me some modicum of trust; I could throw this bomb into the Lifestream and you’d have no chance of stopping me. At the same time, you’re also forcing me into the sunk cost fallacy; once I’ve done something like this I’ll never be accepted anywhere but Avalanche. It reminds me of how the Turks always have their new members kill someone during their first day in uniform.”

“Less blabbing more booming. You do know how to set a bomb right?” Barret insisted, evidently not in the mood to discuss psychology.  
  
“Mr. Wallace, you don't spend nearly ten years as a general without learning a _few_ things about C4.” Sephiroth promised, taking the device.  
  
As he’d suspected; Avalanche’s bomb was utilitarian in design: currently blank display panel, a white switch, an obvious green button and an even more obvious red button.

He slid it gently into place against the main mako pump, and pressed the green button, making the display panel light up with a flashing “20:00”.  
  
Just before he could press the red button, the entire room suddenly shook.  
  
“I knew this was too easy.” Sephiroth sighed.

A large chunk of the reactor’s walls burst inward as a nearly twenty foot tall dark red machine charged through it. It scuttled forward on six legs, bringing the ordnance on its twin arms to bear as its tail lashed behind it  
  
“Welcome to Avalanche Sephiroth, now how about you show new found environmental spirit by helping me recycle this hunk of junk?”

Sephiroth took a moment to size up the scorpion shaped mechanical monster, this was a foe of an entirely different caliber to anything else he’d faced tonight.

“Keep your distance, I’ll distract it.” He promised, and once more Masamune slid free from its sheath.  
  
As if in response, the robot’s mechanical arms came alive, bracketing Sephiroth's body with dozens of targeting lasers. Shinra had doubtlessly developed some new weapon systems in the last five years, so all he could be truly sure of was that this didn’t bode well.

A moment later vents opened up along the top of the robot and roughly two dozen fist sized rockets shot up into the air before arching around in order to head straight for him.

Sephiroth shifted Masamune into a one handed grip, leaving his right hand free to call up a screen of small fireballs.

Each orb detonated as a rocket streaked past it, consuming the sentinel's opening solvo in a cascade of magical flame.

Undeterred, the robot leveled its arms at Sephiroth and let loose with a torrent of high caliber rounds.  
  
No matter how large they were or how quickly they moved, bullets all had the exact same weakness; once they left the barrel, they traveled in a straight line.

Sephiroth didn't have to be faster than a bullet; it was enough to be faster than the articulated arms of a war droid. Moving in sharp, jerky bursts to confound its predictive software, and occasionally twisting his body out of line with the guns, he advanced upon the machine.  
  
All the while there was a series of high pitched “crack” and “plink” noises as Barret unloaded a steady stream of bullets into the robot.

Sephiroth jumped into the air, counting on gravity lend further force to his attack. Right before he had the chance to strike, a glowing blue forcefield suddenly sprung to life around the scorpion..

PTANG!

The field didn’t just stop Sephiroth’s attack dead, it transferred all its momentum back into the silver haired man, sending him flying in the opposite direction.

“That’s new...” He admitted once his feet finally touched the ground.

Even after landing, he was still carrying so much momentum that he ended up sliding across the floor, only avoiding a second trip into the Lifestream thanks to the reactor’s safety railings.

The scorpion scuttled closer, clearly intent on finishing him off, paying no attention at all to Barret’s bullet barrage.

Then it halted, the barrier field flaring and vanishing as electricity arced across its body. Another surge brought its charge to a shuddering halt.

“Shinra loves their windup soldiers; you didn’t think I came unprepared did you?” He could hear Barret calling out to him.  
  
Sephiroth didn’t bother to reply, he had work to do.

The scorpion’s defensive systems momentarily disabled, he rushed forward.

Masamune lashed out a second time, and without the shimmering field to protect it, he severed one of the scorpion’s arm cannons.  
  
The machine, having apparently determined that its position had become untenable, launched itself towards one of the reactor walls, where it hunkered down to unload another barrage of rockets.

“Thing doesn’t know when to quit...” Barret muttered as he rapidly swapped magazines again, his load-out no longer seeming quite so excessive.

"It is a machine. Discretion is not in their nature." Sephiroth pointed out, as he hurled more fireballs in order to destroy the rockets that the scorpion robot was launching at them from its current vantage point.  
  
Strangely, rather than aiming for Barret or Sephiroth some of those rockets simply shot straight upwards, blowing apart chunks of the ceiling. It was hard to tell if that was the result of battle damage disabling some of its targeting systems, or if it was actively trying to collapse the entire reactor on its foes.

When it jumped back down, it landed directly in front of the reactor, and raised its tail up over its head, a thrumming blue light starting to gather at the tip.  
  
Barret seemed to view this as a fine time to take cover behind some of the recently fallen debris, but Sephiroth had other ideas.

Shinra created all manner of mechanical minions for the purposes of killing its foes.  
  
Despite that, despite the fact that Wutai had no capacity to construct anything similar, robots hadn’t won the Wutain War for Shinra, SOLDIERs had.

No matter how thick the armor, no matter how heavy the weapons; all machines ended up sharing the exact same weakness...

Sephiroth sheathed Masamune and ran at the scorpion, weaving back and froth rapidly.  
  
The scorpion’s tail shifted with each of his movements as it continued to build up power for its attack.  
  
Sephiroth jumped into the air and the tail extended still further in order to make sure it he remained firmly in its sights.  
  
Sephiroth landed on top of the robotic scorpion.  
  
He saw the blue energy turn bright white, and a beam of pure concentrated power started to emerge from the tail.

He kicked off of the guard scorpion, moving as fast as he could.  
  
The scorpion’s tail laser connected, aimed at exactly where Sephiroth had been a few moments ago….

Because that was the problem with machines, they didn’t have a sense of self preservation.

The guard scorpion’s most powerful weapon made a mockery of its own armor and fried its internal circuity to a crisp.  
  
It collapsed in a shower of sparks and Sephiroth landed beside it a moment later.  
  
“Ready?”

After getting a nod in response he made his way over to the bomb and finally hit the red button.

“19:59.”  
  
“19:58.”  
  
“19.57.”

“Time to leave.”

  
XXX XXX XXX

It was nice to actually have a mission go exactly as planned for once; it had been a long time since Sephiroth had gotten that lucky, even disregarding the five years he hadn’t been doing missions for.  
  
A quick dash back to the elevator, a few moments to scare the wits out of the administrative personnel to get them running for their lives, and then he and Barret Wallace had done likewise.  
  
They’d gotten out of the Sector One Mako Reactor with five minutes to spare before the bomb went off and as he counted down the final seconds to detonation Sephiroth also took a brief moment to review the mission results.

Primary Objective, destruction of mission critical Shinra assets: total.  
  
Secondary Objective, destruction of Shinra defensive assets: significant.

Actual loss of human life: none.  
  
He didn’t see how the mission could possibly have gone better.

Then the reactor exploded. The _entire_ reactor.  
  
Pieces of the reactor were torn free from its superstructure and hurled into the previously peaceful night, gigantic chunks of flaming death descending on people who’d never imagine such a thing to be possibly only a few moments ago.

Small bits of fiery rubble blanketed the city’s streets like hailstones from hell. Even Sephiroth’s eyes couldn’t see well enough to track it all, but his mind quickly extrapolated figures to fill the gaps.

Actual loss of human life: >10.  
  
Actual loss of human life: >100.  
  
Actual loss of human life: >1000?

“What. Did. You. DO?” Sephiroth gasped, the words accompanied by a faint puff of mist despite the heat of the burning wreckage.  
  
He’d spent more than enough time working for monsters before he’d gone into the Lifestream; he was _done_ making that mistake.  
  
Rather than shrinking from his gaze, Barret drew himself up to his full height and removed his black sunglasses. The first thing Sephiroth noticed upon finally looking the man in the eyes was the faint but unmistakable mako glow. The second was that the skin around them was taut with anguish.

“Jessie double and _triple_ checked that bomb, stayed up all night goin' back over her work, to be damned sure that...” He paused and waved his hand at the scene of destruction unfolding before them.

“Something like ****_**this**_ wouldn’t happen! Do you think this is what I wanted?” Barret insisted, and Sephiroth noticed faint touches of moisture building up around the other man’s eyes.

“Do you think that I could have even made it happen if I did?” He added, before once again sliding his sunglasses back into place.  
  
Sephiroth didn’t allow his anger to dissipate, but he did allow it to be channeled and redirected. He threw his mind desperately into another round of calculations.

Given the size of the bomb that Barret had given him, and presuming that he hadn't been planting secondary explosives without Sephiroth noticing, there was no way their efforts could have caused this level of destruction. It was entirely possible that demolitions tech had advanced in his absence, but not to this degree.

When his calculations didn’t make sense, it was because there was some factor he wasn’t aware of inserting itself into the equation. So what factor was Sephiroth missing?  
  
“That pain… that pain in your eyes. I wouldn't have wished it on you, but I’m glad I see it right now. Cause if you didn’t feel it, if _I_ didn’t feel it, then we'd just be fooling ourselves, thinking we’re any better than Shinra.” Barret’s voice grew louder, projected further, but his inflection was warm, almost gentle.

He was trying to help.  
  
Sephiroth could appreciate that, but he’d never especially been one for words, he’d always preferred actions.

“Get to the train Mr. Wallace, I’ll meet up with you before it leaves the sector.” Sephiroth promised.

“Oh? And what'll you be doing?”  
  
Sephiroth took a deep breath; some people might get a chance to rest after defeating a gigantic mechanical scorpion. Him? He'd rested enough…  
  
“Silver has to go for a walk.”

XXX XXX XXX

“We'll get through this darling… we’ll just…. just...” Tiffany Johnson squeezed her husband Peter's hand in a death grip. The two of them had wound up trapped together inside a their car when it’d been struck by a piece of falling debris, crumpling the roof and crumpling the car. She could feel the weight of that rubble pressing down on her, slowly squeezing the life out of her.  
  
“Can... can you get out?” Peter asked hopelessly  
  
It wasn’t the first time he’d asked her. Neither of them could get out; the weight was too immense for either of them to move. With every passing moment, they could both feel the rubble squeezing the air from their lungs and the slowly encroaching fire cooking them alive.  
  
Which would kill them first?  
  
Tiffany didn’t want to find out the answer. At a time like this, she almost wished mako was as volatile as the forms of fuel that had come before it, that she and her husband could simply exit the world in one all consuming blast of flame. For the moment all she could do was look Peter in the eyes, because no matter how much it hurt to see him gazing forlornly at her; it would hurt even more to look away.

And suddenly… there was a wind.

No. Not a wind.

A blur of motion... tossing aside the huge chunk of debris, and tearing their car's canopy free, giving them space to breath, and to escape.  
  
Just like that… they were safe… at least as safe as anyone else in Sector One...  
  
For the first time since their car had been struck they were finally able to take a deep breath. With a surreal mundanity, the two unbuckled their seat belts.  
  
Then they climbed out of the wreckage of their vehicle and began to hobble away from it, both relying on the other to help keep themselves upright.  
  
The black and silver blur they’d never even had time to notice kept moving.

XXX XXX XXX  
  
The black and silver blur streaked through the sector.  
  
Here was a family cowering in the burning wreckage of their house; surrounded on all sides by flames, waiting for the inevitable end, only to suddenly find each and every single fire extinguished.

Over there a chunk of rubble loomed unsteadily; ready to break free and crush those beneath it at any moment, only to suddenly be frozen in place by a massive icy shell.

Elsewhere a bridge overpass began to collapse and the people who’d been standing underneath found themselves abruptly on the other side of the street, moved to safety just in time.

In the wake of unexpected tragedy people cried out desperately for salvation, and to many of them, it was delivered.

XXX XXX XXX

It was quiet in the streets of Sector One again. At least, as quiet as it was going to get. There was no crackling of flames anymore, nor could he hear the sound of anyone screaming for help.  
  
By Sephiroth’s calculations, he had roughly five minutes left until the train for Sector Seven left Sector One; he was going to make each and every second of them count. The collateral damage for this mission was already way out of hand; he wasn't about to let it get any worse.  
  
Before that time ran out, he needed to make sure that he hadn’t been so busy dealing with all the obvious minor disasters that he’d missed major ones still in the process of unfolding.  
  
“Are you okay?” A gentle voice asked.  
  
Sephiroth paused, taken aback; what kind of person could possibly be worried about other people at a time like this? Still, he was the only one standing in the middle of the street; that voice must have been directed at him.  
  
He turned to face the young woman, assessing her at a glance. No visible injuries. Honey-brown hair, long. Green eyes, non-luminous. A preponderance of pink. A basket of flowers. Hideous boots. Neither a threat nor in need of aid.

“Hey… are you okay?” She repeated her question once Sephiroth had actually made eye contact with her.

“I’m fine.”

He could have simply taken off running again, but didn’t want to distress this innocent woman by moving so fast he all but vanished in the blink of an eye. Instead, he settled for what most humans would consider a brisk jog.

A brisk jog that she managed to catch up with; positioning herself in front of him and thrusting a yellow flower in his face.  
  
“Here, this is for you.” She smiled brightly, her eyes wide and imploring.

Sephiroth sighed, reached down and yanked the pockets of his outfit inside out, revealing that they were completely empty. Barret had insisted that he wouldn’t need money during this mission, so he’d left everything from the vending machine back with Kadaj.

“I’m sorry, in all this chaos I lost my wallet. I don’t have a single gil on me”

Even in the face of a perfectly good excuse the woman proved indefatigable.

“I came up here to sell these, to try and brighten people’s days. That look on your face… you need one so badly that it would feel wrong to charge you.” She insisted.  
  
At first Sephiroth was so busy trying to come up with another excuse he didn’t bother to fully consider what she’d said. When he finally parsed her words, one of them stood out like a wolf among chocobos.

“Did you say that you came _**up**_ here?” Sephiroth put particular emphasis on the word to make sure she couldn’t misunderstand him.  
  
“I live in and grow my flowers in Sector Five.” She explained, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.  
  
Nothing would top the Sector One Mako Reactor exploding, but on any other night that would have easily been the biggest shock Sephiroth received. People should not have been able to grow flowers below the Plate; just to start with there was no sunlight and the soil was sure to be overflowing with industrial byproducts!

It was only when he stopped contemplating the impossibility of what he had been told that he realized his right hand felt different; while he’d been distracted, the woman had somehow closed his fingers around the contested flower

“Like I said, it’s on the house.” She smiled serenely.

Sephiroth wanted to push the flower back towards her, but his mutinous arm seemed to have other ideas.  
  
He, General Sephiroth, had somehow just lost a contest of wills with a random florist.

Horrifying.

Sephiroth hoped from the bottom his heart that this woman never EVER got her hands on ANY kind of materia; the Planet might not survive having reality reshaped by someone with such willpower.

“I’m involved in dangerous things. I need to get back to them.” Sephiroth all but pleaded.

She took a moment to look him up and down: from his shining silver hair, to the long sheath on his shoulders, to his midnight black combat boots.  
  
“I’m sure you are, I’m sure you do. Doesn’t mean you don’t need a flower.” She shot back flippantly.

Having clearly failed every possible metric of holding a normal conversation; Sephiroth decided he had nothing left to lose.

He ran away from the strange young woman so fast that her dress flapped and ruffled in his wake.  
  
XXX XXX XXX  
  
“Hold it right there!” One of the Shinra lackeys demanded.  
  
There were a dozen men surrounding Sephiroth, all bearing the full masks, armored bodysuits, and clawed gauntlets of shock troopers. They weren’t a match for SOLDIERs, but this many of them, especially with the riflemen pouring in from surrounding streets as backup, would force a bloodbath if he fought his way free.

He backed his heel up to the thirty foot drop behind him and flashed a ghost of a mocking smile as the distant rumble got progressively louder. 

“Sorry, I have a train to catch.”

As the roar of the oncoming train reached a crescendo, he vaulted the safety railing, then grabbed hold of the speeding train to arrest his fall. Metal screeched and protested, crumpling under his grip. As the force of the train's movement dragged him backward, he kicked out, shattering the nearest window as he launched through it... to land comfortably in a seat opposite Barret.

“Did I miss anything important?”

“How the hell did you do that?”

“I’m General Sephiroth.”

He’d known where the train tracks were because he’d long ago memorized the layout of Midgar, he’d been able to easily hear the sounds of the train approaching, and as for landing in the same car Barret was in, to say nothing of the exact seat opposite him … well that bit was blind luck, but Sephiroth saw no reason to admit it.  
  


End Chapter

AN: During the Winter War the Soviet Union called in artillery strikes for the sole purpose of trying to kill Simo Häyhä (a Finnish sniper), who probably didn’t have superpowers, thus the idea that Wutai would have done the same thing to Sephiroth is not at all unreasonable.

The first Generation of Avalanche trying to fire the Mako Cannon at Midgar can be seen in chapters 2 and 3 of “Before Crisis” the FF7 cell phone game (which exists only as a theoretical product at this point in time due to various technology changes, so you should probably just find a video of someone else playing it.). Sephiroth is never directly shown stopping the cannon from firing, but when the player character tries to get to the control room and shut it down, they abruptly discover a hallway filled with dead Avalanche members. They describe the scene as “Such destruction. It’s like a hurricane passed through.” and report to Tseng that "Whoever did it must be unbelievably strong.”

When you actually reach the control room, you discover that the Mako Cannon has already been disabled. Finally, Sephiroth himself shows up to save the player character from an Avalanche agent about five minutes later. In short, yeah it was totally Sephiroth, I can’t think of any other reasonable way to read that scene.

Oh and if you spotted my little in joke congratulations, since the game saw fit to use “Biggs” and “Wedge” as the name for Avalanche members (well really they’re a running reference throughout all of Final Fantasy), any random Shinra mook who winds up needing to be given a name will get one based on an actor who played a Stormtrooper in Star Wars (since the troopers themselves were so rarely named).

Finally, yes I am borrowing/using plot points from the remake that revises what Avalanche’s goals were when it came to bombing the reactors. I know some people (my editor is one of them) didn’t care for that particular change because it paints Avalanche as a much lighter shade of gray than they were in the original game, but for me the new version make sense.

Unless explosives are both a lot easier to create and much more destructive in the world of FF7 than in real life, there’s no reason to think that Avalanche should have been able to make bombs powerful enough to destroy an entire mako reactor, let alone do it twice.


	7. Rise from your grief before it grows into your bane

The train rolled on, trading fire for decay as it left the disaster-stricken streets of Sector One for the more generally dilapidated ones of Lower Midgar.  
  
Just like on the ride to the reactor, Sephiroth and Barret had the train car entirely to themselves.

  
Barret cleared his throat awkwardly.

“You… uh, you did good work.”  
  
Sephiroth’s only response was a sullen stare.

He honestly wouldn’t know what “good work” felt like. He hadn’t been doing “good work” when he’d been serving Shinra, and in the wake of that catastrophe, his first mission for Avalanche hadn’t felt much better.

“This is just the first step, though; there are seven more reactors...” Barret began.

“Seven more reactors that need to be destroyed to stop Shinra, to save the Planet. To keep everyone alive today, and everyone who came before them from getting turned into mako power.” Sephiroth finished for him.  
  
He wasn’t in a mood to talk… but also didn’t plan on severing his ties to Avalanche any time soon. Shinra had to be stopped; protecting the future of the Planet was all the logical reason he could ever ask for, and as for emotional reasons….  
  
His mother. His mother. His mother….

Sephiroth wished that he could vent his outrage in bursts of incandescent fury like Barret did. He wished he could seek catharsis in surrendering himself to his hatred of Shinra. It would certainly be easier… but he knew whose voice whispered in the lure of the flames, knew the only place that road led to.

More fire, more senseless destruction, hell unleashed on a world too fragile to weather it.  
  
Sephiroth could live with himself as a blade; he would not allow himself to become a bomb.

It was far safer, far more practical, for him to be cold. Any time spent either coddling or venting anguish was far better  used ensuring the next demolition went off without a hitch.

Should he destroy the mako pump himself, remove all variables but his own raw power? It was within his abilities, he was certain… but would still prove taxing, and would require him to be physically present the entire time. Feasible, but not ideal…

Should he convince Barret to let him work alongside whoever made Avalanche’s explosives? Sephiroth had never been directly trained in demolitions, but he was a _very_ fast learner, and another pair of eyes might catch something the original bomb-maker had missed...

Did he need to find a way to get his hands on some of Shinra’s most recent reactor blueprints? Was there something about their design that made them inherently unstable? That could explain how such a small bomb could trigger something so cataclysmic…

“I already contacted Jessie, she upgraded your ID.” Barret interrupted his train of thought as the compartment flashed red with the light of a Shinra security scan.

Sephiroth didn’t bother to reply. He’d already assumed that was the case; why would Avalanche’s leader risk sharing a train car with someone who the scanners would flag as a criminal?

“You’re part of Avalanche now, you and your brother. We look out for each other; that means I’m gonna find you a place to call your own and put some gil in your pocket for the work you did.”  
  
“Don’t spend too much time looking. We’ll both be fine sleeping in in the basement.”

All of them had more important things to worry about than apartment shopping. Besides, after spending so much time on the front lines of the Wutain War; Sephiroth had refined the nebulous art of sleeping into a precise science. He could sleep anywhere that wasn’t actively on fire, and probably some places that were.

It was not exactly his proudest victory, but once, after a truly heroic amount of pleading, Zack had managed to convince Sephiroth to take part in Shinra’s unofficial annual inter-office SOLDIERs versus Turks “Olympic” games. Rather than compete in some sort of “sensible” event that would make use of his abilities; like free-running or eating month-old Wutain food, Zack had insisted that he’d needed his commander to be a true ringer.

If SOLDIER were going to win the games for once, then he needed Sephiroth to prove that he was the only man on the Planet capable of “out napping” Reno by falling asleep faster in a more awkward place, to be confirmed by heart monitor.

The judges had given him the gold for managing to doze off inside an active refrigerator in only two minutes, beating out his opponent’s feat of drifting off atop President Shinra's desk in five minutes. Sephiroth had privately conceded that Reno had certainly chosen a more _hazardous_ place to sleep, but that hadn’t been one of the criteria being judged…

At any rate, based on the conditions Kadaj had been kept in, he probably wouldn’t make much of a fuss over having little more than a hard floor and a pillow to call his own either.  
  
As for money, Sephiroth would take whatever Barret would offer. He already had several million gil sitting in a Shinra account, even if they’d doubtlessly have frozen it by this point, Money had never really mattered to Sephiroth; he had always found more important things to worry about…

XXX XXX XXX  
  
“So, how did your mission with Kadaj go?” Tifa asked Jessie.

Given that they’d left fairly early in the morning and were only now getting back, things couldn’t have gone too poorly. On the other hand, since Kadaj had opted to take the “Seventh Heaven Special” down to the basement the moment no one was watching, something must not have gone according to plan.

“He’s fun enough to hang around with, and he’ll do a lot of good for Avalanche, but he’s a puppy. You might play with a puppy, but..." Jessie flashed a saucy grin. "I like my guys with a little bad boy in them."

On the heels of those words, Sephiroth stepped through the front door.

Jessie was instantly on her feet, eyes alight. Tifa felt an instinctive surge of sympathetic dread.

“ _ **Hello**_ , tall, bright and handsome!” Jessie eagerly greeted Avalanche’s other newest member.

General Sephiroth did that thing with his eyes that scared people.

Jessie slunk back to the bar.

“Like I said, a _little_ bad boy.” Jessie admitted, before suddenly leaning forward with great intensity.

“Don’t suppose you’ve got a _third_ silver haired guy hidden around here do you?”  
  
Tifa rolled her eyes, again, before confirming that Sephiroth wasn’t the only one to have returned from the mission.

“Marlene, your dad’s back!” Tifa called towards the back room.

Said back room’s door wiggled about for a few moments as its occupant struggled with it, before finally swinging open to allow Marlene Wallace to eagerly race toward her adoptive father’s waiting arm.

“Daddy! You’re home!” The girl squealed with delight.  
  
“That’s right, angel, I am!” Barret declared proudly, scooping the four year old off the ground with a fluid ease born of long practice.

“Have you been a good girl?”  
  
“I helped Tifa wash dishes so I could stay up late and wait for you!”

Every time Tifa saw those two she got a warm feeling in her chest. That girl’s past was one of tragedy, but she refused to allow it to define her future. Even having her original family and her home stolen from her hadn’t stopped her from finding new ones.

Marlene Wallace was a phoenix, even if she didn’t realize it, and witnessing her joy made Tifa long for the day she could truly spread her own fiery wings.

She returned her attention to Sephiroth, whose typical stoicism seemed in this case to cover a blend of conscious aloofness and awkward perplexity.

“They’re quite a pair.”  
  
“She’s... happy.” Sephiroth noted; he almost stumbled over the word, as if it was a foreign concept that he understood on an intellectual level, but that continued to elude his intuitive grasp.

Tifa noticed the yellow flower that had been pinned to Sephiroth’s outfit, but decided it probably wasn’t her place to ask about it.

She was a bartender, not a therapist. Both had to be good listeners, but only the latter asked probing questions.

Luckily, before their awkward attempt at a conversation had to stagger along any further, Kadaj rode the pinball machine up from the basement. He greeted Sephiroth in a manner only slightly less exuberant than Marlene had Barret.

“Seph, it’s so great to see that you’re back! I mean, I knew that you’d come back, because whatever this mission was, you’d be able to do it no sweat, since you’re, you know, you! Still, I mean, I was, well, maybe just a little worried! But you’re here, you’re back, so I don’t need to be worried anymore… what’s this?” Kadaj’s outpouring of praise and relief only ground to a halt when he noticed the same flower Tifa had.

“Do you mean in general, or in particular?”  
  
Kadaj tilted his head to the side in confusion.

“You’ve never seen one before?”  
  
Kadaj eagerly nodded in agreement.  
  
Sephiroth sighed, removed the flower from his outfit and attached it to Kadaj’s.  
  
“This is a flower, it is the reproductive system that many plants use. They’re brightly colored and pleasant smelling because it helps them attract the birds and insects they rely on to spread their genetic material across a wider area. I can explain the process to you in more detail later.

For now just look at it, and know that it’s one of the very few flowers I’ve seen grown in Midgar. Before you ask, Shinra's Mako extraction is the reason there aren’t more of them.” Sephiroth explained, his previously cold tones mellowing out to merely reserved.

For some reason at almost the exact same moment that Kadaj relaxed and accepted the flower, Tifa felt herself relaxing as well. She’d been right; whatever else he was, Sephiroth was devoted to Avalanche’s cause.

“All right, that’s enough scowling and sighing. Shinra’s done plenty to mess up all of our lives, but if we can’t remember how to smile, that’s just letting the bastards win!” Insisted Barret as he returned to the bar after putting Marlene to bed.  
  
“Tifa, break out the good stuff; it’s time to celebrate! Biggs, Wedge, Jessie, these are Avalanche’s two newest members: Sephiroth and Kadaj!”  
  
XXX XXX XXX  
  
In all honesty, Sephiroth could have done without the celebration. To those who didn’t have his unyielding convictions, some form of reassurance was probably welcome though.

Avalanche wasn’t an army, and its members weren’t soldiers. Their morale was probably higher than that of your average Shinra trooper, but it was also most likely a brittle, inflexible thing. Handled poorly, tonight’s tainted success could well cripple it to it.  
  
That left him with little choice but to suffer this round of merriment. So he sat there and let the members of Avalanche gawk at him like an attraction in a circus.

He’d try to keep to himself and see what he could learn about his new companions through observation.

For the most part, anyway; the moment Biggs tried to slide the glass of amber red liquid across the table to Kadaj, Sephiroth intervened, passing it right back.

“Kadaj doesn’t drink.”  
  
“Doesn’t everyone drink?” Kadaj asked, looking at his left hand as if surprised that it was empty.  
  
“I’ll explain later.” Sephiroth promised.  
  
Most SOLDIERS that he’d met wound up with livers so efficient at filtering out toxins that it was impossible for them get drunk. A few, though, saw this as a challenge and decided that the best solution was to simply keep drinking more until they finally achieved the altered state of mind desired.

Kadaj already had a somewhat loose grip on reality; Sephiroth didn’t want to see him come completely unmoored.  
  
“More for the rest of us I guess. AVALANCHE!”

"Avalanche." Sephiroth dryly affirmed.

XXX XXX XXX

  
"Ms Pans..." Reeve glanced from the papers to the brunette who'd been his indispensable secretary since his promotion to department head, "I asked for the final figures...”

“Those are the final figures.” She insisted.  
  
Reeve looked at them again.

“Did President Shinra cut the investigation short? These numbers don’t make sense.”  
  
As he spoke, he quickly brought up a different set of numbers on his computer. He’d designed the newest iteration of mako reactors, doing everything he could to make them safer, but “safer” was not the same as “safe”.

He’d also drawn up projections for what to expect if a reactor was destroyed, in either an environmental disaster or deliberate act of sabotage.

Why were his predictions so out of step with reality?  
  
“Loss of life is barely a quarter of my best case projections.” Reeve almost felt giddy for a brief moment.

Then he realized that he was feeling happy about the outcome of a disaster that had killed dozens of people and done upwards of a billion gil in damages, and cast his eyes downward in disgrace.  
  
“I’ve got a long day of work ahead of me...” Reeve winced, wondering just what, if anything, he’d actually be able to do in order to mitigate the still-unfolding tragedy.

Was he supposed to just fill a dump-truck with gil, drive it into the center of Sector One, empty it out on street and let everyone grab whatever they needed?

The sad thing was that “Plan: Dump-Truck Money Dump” would likely still do more net good for the stricken sector than whatever President Shinra would actually end up approving.

XXX XXX XXX

  
“I’m Marlene.” The little girl introduced herself as she awkwardly clambered up onto on a bar stool next to his own.  
  
“I’m Kadaj.” Avalanche’s youngest member answered with a relaxed smile.

“I’m four!” She added exuberantly, holding up all the fingers of her right hand.  
  
“I’m two.” Kadaj replied, displaying the index and middle finger of his left hand.

That was actually being rather generous since Kadaj was, by his own reckoning, roughly two months old. He didn't know much about how most people matured, but he suspected this was not the same scale Marlene was using.  
  
Marlene took a moment to look Kadaj up and down, then squinched up her face much like he did while grappling with an extremely complex issue.  
  
“Why are you so big?” Was the question she eventually settled on.  
  
Kadaj looked over at the pinball machine. Sephiroth had planned to sleep in, today; he was on his own.  
  
“I’m just lucky.” Was the best answer he could give.

Marlene though that over for a bit but it seemed she could find no compelling counter argument.

“So you work for my daddy now?”

“Yeah, your dad is an amazing guy...” Kadaj began out of pure instinctual desire not to disappoint a wide eyed young girl.

It sure would have been nice if his brain was willing to meet him halfway and supply a proper end to the sentence, though!  
  
Then he glanced down at the yellow flower and remembered what Sephiroth had told him.  
  
“He really cares about the planet!” Kadaj finished with another smile, feeling quite proud of himself.

Thanks to his superhuman reflexes he’d even managed to figure out his response so fast that Marlene hadn’t noticed him pausing to think.  
  
Just like he’d told the young girl, he really was lucky!

XXX XXX XXX  
  
After the lunch rush, it was time for Avalanche to get together and plot their next mission- which meant Sephiroth suddenly had a great deal more company in the hidden basement.

“All right, Avalanche, its time set the wheels in motion for our next major operation against Shinra.” Barret called out to the six other members of the group.  
  
“AVALANCHE!” The four who had didn’t have silver hair roared in approval.  
  
“Avalanche!” Kadaj's cheer was a moment late, but no less exuberant.  
  
“Avalanche.” Sephiroth saw no reason to feign enthusiasm, but still gave the word all the gravity of a solemn oath.

“So, first things first, I’d like to take a moment and thank Wedge; without his help, we might as well be picking numbers out of a hat to figure out which reactor to take down next. Instead, he managed to discover that Shinra is working on some type of new high tech weapon inside the Sector Five Reactor. Whatever it is, this thing is so mako thirsty that they decided to build it someplace where the stuff would be directly on tap... so when we scrap the reactor, that’ll not only give Shinra one less straw to suck the planet dry with, but also deprive them of their newest toy!

Jessie, we’re gonna need five train passes for this mission, and another bomb.”

"No sweat! I, um... I've already figured out what I'll do differently on this one, so don't worry about a thing!" She seemed to be trying to convince herself as much as she was the rest of the team.

“Wedge, its your job to guard our home base and look after Marlene. You’re the one who’ll make sure my baby girl is still here when I get back...” Sephiroth was impressed by the ease with which Barret granted prestige to the mundane, yet necessary task.

No one in army wanted to be responsible for digging latrines, but it had to get done all the same.

“Biggs, you’re going to head in early and lay the prepwork. Try to figure out what we’re up against or if Shinra expects we’re gonna strike again this soon, especially if its against the Sector Five Reactor in particular.”  
  
“Tifa, Sephiroth, Kadaj, you three will stick with me; we’re gonna be the actual strike team.” Barret finished.

“Good.” Was Tifa’s only response, though Sephiroth noticed she was clenching both of her hands into fists.

XXX XXX XXX  
  
It was 8:45 PM; Barret had promised himself he'd make a decision by 9:00 to ensure the attack would coincide with the reactor's evening shift change. It was getting down to the wire; scrap or go, he had to commit soon.  
  
He still hadn’t heard back from Biggs.

He angrily pressed the “reload” key on an otherwise completely mundane email account.  
  
The account still hadn’t received any new messages, and if he didn’t hear from Biggs soon it might mean Shinra had captured him. On the other hand, it might just mean that his communication equipment had suffered some minor malfunction and waiting would give Shinra time to complete their new weapon. Should he go ahead with the mission and risk the possibility that the rest of Avalanche would be walking right into a trap?

He allowed himself to breathe easily when a “1” popped up in the account’s “Drafts” folder, a signal that, in theory, someone else was partway into writing an email.  
  
Barret selected it, opening the message with no recipients and no subject line. Its contents were a single character.  
  
“!”.

Barret grabbed his black sunglasses and turned to face the basement’s only other occupant.

“Hot damn! Sephiroth, mission is live! Grab your little brother and let's show Shinra what happens when they mess with our Planet!”  
  
Sephiroth was laying on a pile of boxes with his traditional “completely unreadable” expression but in a few moments he was standing by the pinball machine ready for a ride up.

Barret joined him, and started passing out more orders the moment the machine was halfway up.

“Jessie, get the word out on the web, since Shinra refused to shut down their reactors, Avalanche is gonna generously do the job for them.” He ordered.  
  
Avalanche’s computer specialist shot him a quick salute as she was crouched over the laptop Sephiroth had brought with him, relishing the chance to finally have a top of the line machine to work with.

“Tifa, grab your gloves.” He called out to Seventh Heaven’s owner.  
  
A dirty rag hit the bar’s counter.

The door to the Seventh Heaven’s backroom didn’t have a chance to stop swinging from its owner’s speedy entrance before she exited it, combat gloves adorning her fists.

“Alright, let’s get going.” Her voice had the grim, purposeful energy of a hunting dog that had finally been let off the leash.

Sephiroth glanced at Kadaj.

"Are you ready to go to work?"

“I came out of the mako tank ready!” Kadaj eagerly vowed, standing up from his seat to take up a flanking position behind Sephiroth.

The four of them headed for the train station with Barret in the lead.

This was the first time Tifa had actually joined Barret on a mission, but that barely mattered; if he could trust her with Marlene, he could definitely trust her with his life!

As for “Sephiroth”, at this point it hardly mattered to Barret if he was the genuine article or not. Maybe he was just some random SOLDIER who was putting on a show. Maybe he was just some crazy strong nutjob who simply believed himself to be the legendary general…

Hell, maybe he was the real thing; right now, all Barret cared about was that Sephiroth had proven his commitment to the mission. After his performance in Sector 1, he’d earned himself at least a little trust and respect.

Finally, there was Kadaj.

Even Sephiroth admitted he was untested and even Marlene could tell that he didn’t have the eyes of a killer. Who knew how much help he was actually going to be on this mission?

Well, there had been times when Barret had wondered exactly how much good Wedge could do for Avalanche, and if it wasn’t for his skills at information gathering then they would never have gotten a chance to nip Shinra’s latest mechanical monstrosity in the bud.  
  
Avalanche was rolling, and Shinra was downhill.

End Chapter.  
  
AN: The method of contact Biggs and Barret are using is to the best of my understanding (the purity (by which I meant not drawing the attention of law enforcement agencies) of my search history insists I don’t look too deeply into it) is a real world method of contact for clandestine electronic “email”, because it is a lot easier for someone watching a system to notice a message that is actively being sent between two different accounts than one that is simply created in a dummy account by one person, and then viewed by a second person with access to that same account on a different machine.


	8. Too many war wounds and not enough wars, too few rounds in the ring and not enough settled scores.

“So, how did you and my brother first meet?” Kadaj asked Tifa.

Sephiroth barely held back his wince.

The four of them were already above the Plate and otherwise alone in the a train car headed for the Sector Five Mako Reactor, but this was still neither the time, or place to discuss such personal matters.

“Kadaj, I can share my history with Ms. Lockhart later….” Sephiroth cut in.

“No, it’s fine.” Tifa seemed to have other ideas, however. “Five years ago, your brother saved my life.”

“Emergency ID scan initiated...” A mechanical voice cut Tifa's story short; Sephiroth almost sighed with relief.

Everyone in the car turned their eyes towards the voice’s source. They’d already gone through one routine ID scan without raising any red flags but…  
  
“Unauthorized IDs detected. Threat level: critical. Inspection and containment sweep initiated, commencing at the rear of the train.” The monotone voice somehow managed to sound accusatory.  
  
“Any chance that maybe some other bad people got on the train recently?” Kadaj suggested forlornly.  
  
“We ain’t sticking around to find out.” Barret insisted, rising from his seat.  
  
Before any of them could exit the compartment, several of its windows were smashed in by a quintet of vaguely canine Shinra drones.

Sephiroth's hand hovered over Masamune's hilt; there was no way to use it without carving the car to pieces with them still in it.  
  
Luckily, he didn’t need to

“My turn.”

Tifa sprang from her seat and landed in a crouch before of the robots. A low hook kick launched it across the breadth of the train car. It struck a second drone on its path to the far wall with enough force to carry them both through the window, to be quickly left behind by the fast-moving train.

It struck a second drone on its path to the far wall with enough force to send the one it struck sailing out the window, to be quickly left behind by the fast-moving train. As for the original, it slammed into the far wall of the train with enough force to leave a noticeable dent and started shooting sparks.

That didn’t seem enough to satisfy Tifa though, she closed in and stomped the machine into the wall enlarging the bulge to almost half a foot in length and turning the robot into so much scrap.

Before Tifa's leg was done fully retracting from her blow a third Shinra drone pounced on her from behind. She rode out the impact, and twisted around, grabbing the machine just above where the bladed segment of its leg began.  
  
With loud “CRACK” she slammed the drone against the floor, then followed up with a kick savage enough to tear the limb free and reduce the machine to a lump of misshapen metal.

Kadaj handled the other two in short order; the confined spaces were little trouble for Souba which trisected a robot before he zapped the final one with lighting.

“Exeunt Avalanche pursued by mechanical bear.” Sephiroth sighed dryly.

He raced over to the doors leading out of their compartment, but for one of the few times in his life. Sephiroth wasn’t fast enough. His hand deflected away from the door, and he recognized the characteristic shimmer of the kinetic barriers that had already proven capable of resisting Masamune.  
  
“Four unauthorized passengers successfully contained. Neutralizing threat...” The mechanical voice announced as half a dozen more robots flooded into the compartment.  
  
“Getting real cramped in here!” Barret grumbled, clambering up on the seats in search of a clean line of fire.

“If we can’t escape, Shinra will eventually decide they’re okay with destroying this entire compartment. If they realize it’s _me_ , they’ll destroy the entire train. We need a way out, even if we have to jump...” Sephiroth warned.

“And here I was worried you’d have trouble fitting in at Avalanche. Jumping off of a moving train is a Biggs’ plan ‘E’ if I ever heard one.” Barret chuckled.

Unfortunately, the nearest pair of side doors used to enter or exit the train also had a flickering fields protecting them. The doors at the far side lacked them, however, and the ruined remains of the drone Tifa'd embedded in the wall gave a fair guess at why.

They’d escape out those doors; once they dealt with with Shinra's robotic reinforcements.

“This is my plan G.”  
  
“How many plans you got under that silver mop, and when were you planning on sharing them with the rest of us?”  
  
“Enough that most of them are numbered, and I'll share them when they become relevant. Somehow, they always seem to go better the less I talk about them...” Sephiroth deadpanned.  
  
"That so? Alright, plan man, we all make it in plan G?"  
  
"Yes. Kadaj does end up needing an eyepatch for a week or two in plan M, however."

While the two of them discussed strategy, Kadaj and Tifa were working together to clear a path through the robots and advance down the train compartment.

Once he had a clear shot, Barret fiddle with his gun arm, then fired a breaching round that left a noticeable dent in the door.

That, combined with a kick from Kadaj, dislodged it; at which point Tifa slammed an elbow into the emergency brake button.

By some miracle, a Shinra safety feature actually worked as advertised, and the sound of screeching metal filled the air as the train began to decelerate.  
  
"We're still moving pretty fast, will you be all... right?" Kadaj found him asking the empty space Tifa had just vacated.

"Huh. Guess so!" He shrugged, then launched himself after her.

Kadaj flung himself toward the far wall of the tunnel, hitting it feet first, then kicked off, bleeding off momentum in a corkscrew spin to land lightly in the train's wake.

Tifa, having opted for a more conventional tuck and roll landing, was dusting herself off a few yards further down the tunnel.

Sephiroth's boots hit the ground a moment later, followed by Barret's. Even with the emergency brake engaged the train was still moving forward; more Shinra drones began to cluster around it like ants converging around spilled picnic food.

“Could have gone worse.” Sephiroth admitted.  
  
“You don’t know how right you are...” Barret noted with a touch of pride.

He made his way over to a wall that bore a drawing of a cartoon dog in a green army helmet.

“See, this is why we sent Biggs in ahead. This here is OUR plan ‘E’. He did a little creative graffiti to make sure that we don’t get lost in these twisty train tunnels. The dog’s nose will always point in the direction of the Sector Five Reactor. It’s a straight shot, all we gotta do is take it.” Avalanche’s leader explained.

“Well, we’ve also gotta walk a long way. That’s fine though; I don’t get tired!” Kadaj added “helpfully”.  
  
XXX XXX XXX

“So, why did you join Avalanche?” Kadaj asked Tifa.  
  
Sephiroth would have been fine with this trip taking place in silence, but unsurprisingly his younger brother had other ideas.

“I joined, because I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t. Troopers, SOLDIERs, Mako Reactors, Shinra, I hate 'em all. They take away all the things and people you love. I swore to myself I’d make them all disappear.”

/Planet, what did I do to this girl?\ Sephiroth sighed to himself, lengthening his stride to put some distance between himself and the conversation.

XXX XXX XXX

Just as Kadaj had predicted, after one very long walk through Midgar’s subway system, they finally reached the Sector Five Reactor.

“This place reeks of mako...” Barret announced he crawled out of a ventilation shaft.

“Isn’t ‘reeks’, overselling it? What’s wrong with the smell of mako?” Kadaj couldn’t help but ask.

“Bad memories...” Sephiroth instantly answered.

Kadaj could tell that this was another topic his big brother didn’t want to discuss in depth until “later”.

“We’re already near mako storage, but remember that’s only half of the reason we’re here. Whatever brand new weapon Shinra is working on, we need to find it and trash it before we leave.” Barret insisted.

“That’s why Jessie set us up with this.” Tifa noted with a slight smirk as she patted the pocket that held the remote detonator.  
  
Said detonator would allow them to plant the bomb, but defer arming it until they were done dealing with Shinra’s secret weapon. Kadaj could certainly see the wisdom in not having to search an entire reactor from top to bottom, with an armed and ticking time bomb inside it.  
  
There was just one problem with the next phase of the plan.  
  
“I’m not seeing a way down...” “We may need to make a ladder...” Barret and Sephiroth mused simultaneously.

“Here, maybe?” Tifa offered, gesturing towards a large metal pipe jutting out of one of the reactor’s walls, its starting point about ten feet below them.

“Tifa, you come up with the best plans!” Kadaj giggled, grasping the bar owner in an impulsive hug.

Then he broke away and vaulted over the guard rails, landing flat on his back atop the pipe.  
  
“WEEEEEEEEE….” Kadaj cheered as he slid down.

Then as he neared the end of the pipe, he effortlessly rolled off of it, to land on a second pipe, riding that one the rest of the way down.

He was fairly sure the other three were saying something up above, but he was having too much fun to pay attention.

Tilting his head back slightly he noticed that the other three had opted to stay upright and ride down the pipe balanced on their feet; well, whatever they felt comfortable with.

“That was an… _interesting_ approach to my plan.” Tifa admitted after she fished sliding down the pipe.

“Kadaj, avoid taking needless risks.” Sephiroth scolded as he hopped off the pipe.

“Well, I mean, it wasn’t exactly needless, and it wasn’t exactly a risk...” Kadaj faltered under Sephiroth's flat stare.

Kadaj tried to figure out how best to explain the importance of fun to his older brother. Sadly, just contemplating where to start ended up taking him so long that Barret also completed the trip down and noticed something the other three had missed.

“Hey, kids, over here...”

It was a computer console displaying a large mechanical… machine…

It roughly resembled a human from the waist up, but it ended at the knees, with everything from the waist down covered by plated metal cowling.

“So that’s Shinra’s newest weapon... The only question now is where in the reactor are they actually keeping it?” Sephiroth mused.  
  
“And why did they just leaving a console turned on and broadcasting images of it to anyone walking by?” Tifa added a moment later.

“Morale building?” It wasn’t much of an answer, but Kadaj couldn’t think of a better one.

He didn’t completely understand the concept, but the doctor’s had explained that it was important to always be willing to show off what you were capable of; that way people would feel confident you could protect them.

“I wish I could believe that; by this point in our attack on the Sector One Reactor we’d already had to deal with roughly a dozen automated turrets and a handful of guard dogs. Why is this place less heavily defended?” Sephiroth pondered.

“Maybe Shinra got spooked and cleared out?” Barret suggested.  
  
There was a soft humming sound and quartet of the “Monodrive” drones that Kadaj had been taught about fluttered into the room from some hidden entrance.

It sounded like he had some work to do.

XXX XXX XXX  
  
The monodrives were no problem for her and the others.  
  
Even the pair of sweeper robots hadn’t put up much of a challenge thanks to Sephiroth and Kadaj. Avalanche kept moving with the inexorable nature of a rock-slide until they finally reached the reactor itself.  
  
“So, who’d like to do the honors?” Barret pulled the bomb free from his jacket with a grim smile.

“This place may not be Seventh Heaven; but for some reason, I’m still in the mood to serve the drinks.” Tifa eagerly snatched it from his hand.

“I’ve had a lot of experience making Cosmo Canyons… I think I’ll call this a Cosmo Cannon...” She announced with a playful smirk while attaching the bomb.

“When the time comes, I press the button, and tomorrow Shinra’s wakes up with the mother of all hangovers.” Tifa quipped.

Except that once was the bomb firmly in place, a string of explosions started.

The ladders that they’d climbed down in order to get to the center of the reactor were instantly blown to pieces. The doorway that they’d entered through was blocked by a heap of rubble. The many platforms that they’d moved across collapsed one after another in a string of blasts.  
  
“Is another cell hitting this reactor, too?” Tifa wondered, unable to come up with any other possible reason for why the reactor suddenly seemed to be suffering from a series of pinpoint acts of sabotage.

That couldn’t be it though, the explosions weren’t damaging the reactor; they were cutting off Avalanche’s avenues of escape, with distressing thoroughness.  
  
That was when the drones arrived.

There were over a dozen of them, but unlike the other Shinra robots Avalanche had encountered, these ones seemed to be completely unarmed. Instead, as they floated close together a glowing blue image emerged of a bearded man’s upper body

“Gya haah hah hah! Greetings my dear sewer rats!” The man cackled triumphantly.  
  
Tifa recognized him at once, and if this man knew what they were doing Avalanche was in a lot of trouble...

XXX XXX XXX

Sephiroth recognized the man at once; if he was Avalanche’s primary opposition, they couldn’t be in too much trouble...

“General Heidegger. Holograms? You're really committing to the REMF life, I see.” Sephiroth remarked conversationally.

“Sephiroth, you should have stayed a MIA when you had the chance!” The translucent figure boomed.

“Who is he exactly?” Kadaj inquired, paying more attention to his big brother than the 20 foot tall holograph.

“Artillery commander in the Wutain War. Too much work and not enough distance for his liking, but he found a _brilliant shortcut_ to acclaim: he'd order danger close bombardments on close quarters fights, then report all casualties as belonging to the enemy.”

That introduction out of the way; Sephiroth returned his attention to the matter at hand.

“So, do you plan to kill me because I’m going to destroy this reactor, or are you just still upset that I was promoted to general before you?”

“That was a BREVET promotion, you jumped up noncom!” Heidegger roared, his larger-than-life simulacrum rendering the veins on his forehead with alarming clarity.

“Really? Funny how President Shinra never got around to revoking it in the two years after the war.”  
  
“Enough! You know, you should be flattered; you’re getting another chance to command the undivided attention of every soul in Midgar.” Heidegger’s tone abruptly turned jovial in a manner not even Kadaj would consider genuine.  
  
“At this very moment, countless people are being removed from their homes because of the evacuation which Shinra has been forced, with heavy heart, to order for the safety of the those in the path of your terrorist rampage. We in the Public Safety department are the only ones who can stand against such murderous blackguards! And so, to a people beset by chaos and uncertainty, we shall offer the finest comfort: bread and circus!” The holographic general boasted.

“Hah! I bet you ain’t gonna give out one single crumb!” Harrumphed Barret.

“Foodstuffs are Urban Development’s concern, not mine. As for entertainment though…” Heidegger held out his huge hands and a holographic representation of the same robot they’d seen before flickered to life in his palms.

Except the robot was no longer lifeless; it flexed its arms, and seemed to hover under its own power.  
  
“I give you Shinra’s latest triumph of technology, the Airbuster! Designed for combating only the greatest and most dangerous of monsters… I suppose it is only fitting that it gets a chance to prove itself against monsters like you!” Heidegger chortled gleefully.

“Engineering on the line. The Airbuster is only sixty percent operational! The estimates were optimistic...” Another more panicked voice abruptly announced.  
  
“I’m on air!” Heidegger screamed at the unseen, uninvited interrupter before the gigantic representation of him vanished; most likely terminating the connection before anything else of value could be leaked to Avalanche.

Kadaj snickered.

Sephiroth felt like he should be warning his brother not to take the threat that Shinra represented lightly.... but this _was_ General _Heidegger_...  
  
"Sounds like we got ourselves a lucky break, so let's show those fat cats what these ‘sewer rats’ can do! Mission is still the same, all that’s changed is Shinra wants to bring their new toy to us. Make’s sending it to the junkyard that much easier.”

“To the imbecile in charge down there, you are hereby ordered to seize those intruders and bring them to me!” Heidegger’s voice thundered, though this time it seemed to be coming through a much more mundane PA system.

The one remaining operational door leading out of the room opened, and four figures in red charged through it.

Eite shock troopers.

If Shinra hadn’t changed their policy in the last five years, then their regular shock troopers were so pumped full of combat drugs that they’d probably die fighting before considering surrender; the ones who got promoted _liked_ the feel of that hellish chemical cocktail.

“Come quietly or they’ll be trouble!” Their leader commanded.

Barret simply pressed his index finger to his lips and blew out a soft “sssshhhhhhh.”

XXX XXX XXX

“I’m really sorry about this.” Kadaj insisted, as he dodged another strike from a clawed gauntlet.

“Stay still, you stupid pipsqueak!” Screamed the trooper.  
  
His gauntlets lashed out again, but they were made for extreme close-in combat, and Kadaj saw no reason to play his opponent’s game. Instead, he employed careful footwork to always keep himself just outside his foe’s reach.

“Look, I’d really rather not hurt you all that badly, but I totally will if I have to...” Kadaj protested as he tried to figure out the best way to disable his opponent without actually hurting them.

The problem was that they were wearing so much armor, and that armor also doubled as their offensive tools, so how was he supposed to disarm them?  
  
So much armor…  
  
Oh, well that made it actually pretty easy once he stopped to think about it!

He concentrated, and an aura of arcing electricity crackled into being around him.

“Idiot.” Scoffed the shock trooper as he lunged for Kadaj again.

“My armor comes with built in insulators, you could run a million volts through it and I wouldn’t feel a thing!”  
  
The claws came at him again, but this time Kadaj jumped straight over the shock troopers head before reaching out to gently tap a single finger on the shock trooper’s shoulder.

“Good.” Kadaj noted, and let the electricity loose.

The energy flowed into the trooper’s armor, and he toppled over like a felled tree.

“What the hell?!” The trooper growled as he struggled in vain to move, but his armor might as well have been welded to the floor for all the progress he made.

“Electromagnetism is my favorite natural phenomenon. Okay, second favorite actually; without photosynthesis none of us would be here.” As Kadaj spoke, he took up position on top of the fallen trooper.

After a few moments of careful inspection his hands located the release catch for the trooper’s helmet, and began to poke and prod at it. Alas, Kadaj had no more luck removing the helmet than the trooper did standing up.  
  
“Why won’t this stupid helmet come off? It is like this thing weighs a ton! Why would a simple metal helmet be so- oh. Ohhhhhh... Heh." The youth couldn’t hold back a chuckle as he realized that he might not have thought this plan all the way through.  
  
After taking a deep breath and adopting a position that offered him greater leverage Kadaj applied all the strength his muscles could muster to the task. With a mighty heave managed to remove the troopers helmet and carry it three inches before it shot to the floor with a metallic “clunk”.

"There we go!" With the helmet removed, the injector assembly on the back of the shock trooper neck was visible. Kadaj poked it, and, with another electrical surge, the indicator LEDs flared, then died as a tiny wisp of smoke floated upward.

The swearing trooper's struggles slowed, then ceased. Kadaj grinned as he recalled one of his lessons: the drug cocktail that Shinra pumped into their shock troopers greatly improved their strength and speed, but came with a severe crash if the feed was cut off too suddenly.

XXX XXX XXX  
  
“Girl, I am gonna cut you to ribbons...” The elite shock trooper chuckled to himself as he sized up Tifa.

“No.” She promised coolly and calmly.

The shock trooper’s right arm struck out at her, but she drew back faster than the trooper could follow.

As the metal claws whistled through the air Tifa pivoted with superhuman speed, and grabbed the trooper’s right shoulder, yanking him even further off balance. Then she sealed the deal with a side kick to her foe’s knee, aiming for the joint where the armor was inevitably most vulnerable.

The sound of something of Shinra’s shattering was music to her ear, it didn’t matter if it was armor or bone.  
  
Tifa yanked still harder and pulled the trooper to the ground as she launched herself upwards. She descended knee first into the trooper's right shoulder, driving him to the floor with no working limbs on the right side of his body.  
  
Easy as that, the trooper was on the ground, his unharmed limbs denied any leverage with which to act.

At that point it really was no contest.  
  
No contest, and no reason to stop until he stopped moving, forever.

Tifa couldn’t help but smile at the results of her handiwork; one more broken weapon in Shinra’s arsenal.

XXX XXX XXX  
  
“I know self preservation isn’t high on your list of priorities at the moment, but try to think about this logically for just a moment… I’m General Sephiroth.” He warned the elite shock trooper.

Alas, the trooper refused to head his completely reasonable advice.  
  
Instead of attacking Sephiroth head on, the trooper raised up his gauntlets, and they unleashed a several crackling discharges of electrical energy.

“Hmm, upgrades.” Sephiroth admitted, he couldn’t recall shock troopers being able to do that five years ago.

Not that it made a difference; the arcing blasts crossed the intervening space in the blink of an eye, but the man aiming them might as well have been swimming through mud.

He closed in with the shock trooper, and grabbed hold of his gauntlets; which were only dispersing electrical energy from their tips rather than coursing across their entire length.  
  
What did course across their entire length was ice.

Sephiroth froze the gauntlets, then tightened his grip ever so slightly.  
  
Chunks of ice flew through the air as both gauntlets shattered.

The elite shock trooper tilted his helmeted head downwards and gazed at his bare hands.

“I know self preservation isn’t high on your list of priorities at the moment," Sephiroth repeated with a mild smirk, "but try to think about this logically for just a moment… I’m General Sephiroth.”

XXX XXX XXX  
  
“When I’m done with you, they’re gonna be able to attach three more guns to your corpse.” The elite shock trooper boasted.

This was not a fight that favored Barret Wallace. He knew that elite shock trooper’s armor was bullet resistant without seriously impeding their speed, and his lighting materia wouldn’t help him much either.  
  
A gun was simply not the weapon you wanted against a foe who could quickly close with you before you could shoot them dead.  
  
Barret was outmatched in every way… except one.  
  
Even elite shock troopers took orders; Barret Wallace gave them.  
  
“Sephiroth, I could use some help.” He admitted.

The shock trooper lunged at Barret, a blur of red and white.  
  
A faster blur of black and silver intercepted him.

Sephiroth's open hand caught the trooper square in the chest. Before the trooper could react, Sephiroth had carried him the length of the room, slammed him against a wall hard enough to buckle armor and wall alike, and sealed him within a shell of ice.

“What’s Engineering progress on getting that Airbuster operational? Still only sixty percent? Bullshit! "Get it done, or I'll throw you off the plate myself!” Heidegger berated his subordinates over the reactor’s PA system.  
  
“It’s been like, less than a minute since you last asked; you should really give them more time!” Kadaj couldn’t help but point out now that he was done fighting for his life.  
  
“You’re wasting your time.” Sephiroth muttered.

“I don’t know; I kinda like the kid’s enthusiasm.” Barret chuckled.

XXX XXX XXX  
  
“Get these components prepped for the Airbuster ASAP!”  
  
“It’s ready sir!”  
  
“Component outbound from B8!”

Such was the chatter taking place between various Shinra personnel as Avalanche entered the room.

There were two elite guards and five regular ones manning various computer terminals in the room, but they soon abandoned that task to aim their weapons at the intruders.

They hadn’t started shooting, though. Barret could work with that; it didn't hurt that there were also a dozen unarmed people in orange vests and hardhats who looked like they profoundly wished they were absolutely anywhere else at the moment.  
  
“Here’s how this works.” He announced, taking a moment to remove his sunglasses so he could look the various troopers in the eye.  
  
“Standing on my right is a woman who would very much like to punch you all to death.”

The woman in question didn’t say anything, she just gazed out into the room, hatred smoldering in her eyes.

“Standing on my left, is a man who would prefer you didn’t die.”

The man in question didn’t say anything either, his expression was at best “not openly hostile”.

“Luckily for you all, I’m the leader, and that means I get to make the final call.”

Eyes shifted rapidly back and forth between the two men, one of whom was obviously General Sephiroth… and and yet _this man_ was the one in charge?

“Now, I ain’t got any love for you Shinra dogs, but a good commander, unlike the one you poor bastards have, listens to his troops. So here’s how this is is gonna work: if you make like good doggies who run away with their tails between their legs, you’ll get to live.

Just three conditions: you’re gonna carry off these friends of yours we brought with us, you’re gonna warn anyone else you see to get the hell out of this reactor, and before you leave the room, you're going to turn over your helmets.

We get into a fight with anyone who doesn’t have a helmet...” Barret shrugged.

"I go for the head." Tifa filled in.

Then she held out her hands, and Kadaj placed a helmet into them.

She ripped the thing apart like it was made of wet cardboard and let the pieces fall to the floor.

“So, who wants to surrender?”

XXX XXX XXX  
  
“I still can’t believe Shinra is this incompetent.” Sephiroth sighed as he looked at a graphical display of the Airbuster once room B8 had been abandoned.

“Far as I can tell, they played us like a damn fiddle...” Barret grumbled.

“You made the best call you could.” Tifa insisted, placing a hand on his shoulder reassuringly.

“There are two key components to every ambush. The first, is convincing the enemy to go exactly where you want them to be. I’ll admit they did quite well on that front.

The second though; that’s having a force of you own ready to wipe out the enemy once they’ve taken the bait. Shinra’s ‘force’ is a robot that is still under construction! They could have sent two dozen First Class SOLDIERs, they could have just had their own massive bomb that went off when we approached the reactor, but no; Heidegger insisted on using a fancy robot that isn’t even off the production line yet.” Sephiroth scoffed in open derision.

“If it’s still under construction, can we do anything to deconstruct it?” Kadaj suggested eagerly.

Fingers flew across a keyboard.  
  
A moment later a few of the bright lights on the Airbuster’s digital representation went dark.  
  
“Exactly my thoughts; that’s why I just rerouted some of this machine’s munitions straight to the incinerator.”

XXX XXX XXX

“Component Construction Room B7, report!” Heidegger screamed into his radio.

At first there was only the crackling of static, but then a voice answered him, an infernally smug baritone voice.  
  
“I’m sorry, the occupants of Room B7 decided they’d rather hand over their helmets, than die for your convenience.”

“Traitors, all of them. Just like you.” Heidegger half spat half snarled.

“By the way, I hope your precious Airbuster didn’t need this ‘AI Programming Core’ too badly. You always knew so much more about industrialized warfare than I did… "Also, just for curiosity's sake, was it your idea to present a live broadcast of the Midgar's greatest hero rebelling against Shinra? Because one of my fellow terrorists insists it must have been Palmer's..."

“You aren’t even worthy of the title of ‘soldier’ let alone ‘general’; you were always nothing but a dog, and now you’ve gone rabid.”

“Woof.”

The line went dead.  
  
XXX XXX XXX

“Component Construction Room B6, report!” Heidegger could feel his anger growing in time with the incompetence of his subordinates.

There was more static, then a voice, a voice that did not use the properly deferential tones to address the Head of Shinra’s Public Safety Department.

“You want a report? Okay, listen up!” The voice was rougher than Sephiroth’s, and a great deal louder.

“Mako is the lifeblood of the Planet! If we didn’t rise up against Shinra then you’d turn this entire beautiful Planet into a lifeless hunk of rock! I don’t gotta tell you that though; no, top Shinra brass like you knows exactly what you’re doing, you just don’t care! Does it make you feel proud to know that you’re gonna be the last one to….” The voice continued.

Heidegger changed the frequencies on his radio.  
  
“This is General Heidegger, I want all the radio equipment from room B6 dropped from the network!” He ordered.

“… The Planet is screaming in pain and you’re busy shovin’ piles of gil into your ears so you can pretend not to hear it! The day is gonna come when…” Was the first response he got back.  
  
It seemed he’d underestimated their tenacity. How tiresome.

XXX XXX XXX  
  
“Room B5 status report?”

The radio crackled to life.

“Brian Lockhart sends his regards.”

The signal cut out.

Heidegger scowled. Who the hell was Brian Lockhart?

XXX XXX XXX

Everything else the Sector Five Reactor could throw at them had either fled or fallen. Avalanche had done everything they could to sabotage the Airbuster by rerouting important components to the incinerator.

Now they’d reached the critical T-intersection located just outside the reactor’s entrance. If the Airbuster didn’t get deployed against them soon Shinra wouldn’t get a chance.  
  
Sure enough, as they entered the area, a quartet of small drones floated up to meet them, before splitting apart to project a holographic image.  
  
This one wasn’t of General Heidegger, however.

“Hello John.” Sephiroth greeted the larger than life figure.

“So it is true what Heidegger said, how disappointing.” Reflected the Shinra Electric Power Company’s CEO.

A moment later there was a series of sharp cracks and one of the drones was shredded by gunfire.

“Think you’re forgetting someone?” Barret called out.

The holographic image wavered for a moment, but more drones arrived and it stabilized.

“Would that I could; at least even as a foe Sephiroth can be relied upon for his terse nature. You strike me as the type to go on without end.” President Shinra sighed languidly.

“Ain’t enough hours in the day to hold you to account for all your crimes!” Barret bellowed at the drone that was floating closest to him.

“You want to portray me as some kind of monster, but do you know what I am? I am a man who loves his life. I am a man who does not sacrifice his love or his values. Avalanche has no concepts of morality but the mystical or the social. You have would say that morality is a code of behavior imposed on you by whim; the whim of a supernatural power or the whim of society. To serve the Planet’s purpose or your neighbor’s welfare, to please an authority beyond the grave or else next door, but not to serve _your_ life or pleasure…

An entity that regarded its means of survival as evil will not survive. A doctrine that gives you, as an ideal, the role of a sacrificial animal seeking slaughter on the altars of others, is giving you _death_ as your standard. By the grace of reality and the nature of life, man, every man, is an end in himself; he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose.”  
  
Sephiroth and Barret exchanged glances, they could both tell what the other was thinking.

Sephiroth let loose with a series of lighting bolts and Barret still more bullets, each destroying one drone after another as President Shinra continued to drone on.

Once again the holographic image flickered out of existence, but Shinra seemed to have enough of their robotic minions on hand to filibuster the members of Avalanche despite their best efforts.  
  
Except that when the holographic image coalesced a third time it was General Heidegger rather than President Shinra.

“Do you know what I hate about you most Sephiroth?” The dark haired man snarled.

Sephiroth remained stoically silent.

“You. Ended. The. War!”  
  
“What?” Every member of Avalanche was caught equally flatfooted, and ended up gasping the word in unison.

“Shinra had a greater population to draw upon, a stronger economy, a greater industrial base, we had materia, we had SOLDIERs! We held all the cards, and by carefully limiting exactly how large a force we deployed, we were able to draw out the war for eight glorious years!” Heidegger chortled.

Sephiroth felt his always pale face going whiter still. This was insane, this was beyond insane. Heidegger talked about the Wutain War the same way that a farmer might talk about cows or crops, something to be carefully nurtured.

“Then you had to come along and throw everything into chaos! You brought Wutai to its knees, and suddenly everyone in Midgar was no longer willing to sacrifice for the good of Shinra. People who only weeks ago had been patriotic recruits, now started to demand things like education, healthcare, and countless other fripperies!  
  
I thought that we’d never again have another chance to truly unite the people of Midgar, but then in their boundless wisdom, Wutai gave us a wonderful gift…. Avalanche!

Avalanche, the sinister servants of wicked Wutai who will inflict upon Midgar suffering the likes of which Wutai’s armies never could have even dreamed of! All of Midgar will be howling for their blood, and this time, this time the war will _never_ end! Gya haa haa haa!”  
  
Sephiroth just stared straight ahead, utterly incredulous. How could he, how could anyone respond to something like that? “You’re insane” seemed paradoxically far too self evident, and yet also far too milquetoast a response.

Before he could decide what to say, the holographic Heidegger gave way to a shot of the reactor’s core, and the bomb Tifa had planted. More Shinra drones were surrounding it, but they didn’t seem to be trying to disarm it...  
  
“What are you doing?” Demanded Barret angrily.

“Don't you see? You fools were never in control. Never anything but pawns in our plans to sell great and glorious war to the people! And your instruments of insurrection will detonate, when we so choose!”  
  
The bomb’s display lit up.

“25:00”  
  
“24:59

“24:58”  
  
“Tifa, deactivate it!” Barret insisted instantly.  
  
Tifa slammed the green “deactivate” button on her remote detonator, again, and again and again….

“24:57”

“24:56”

“24:55”  
  
Nothing she did made a difference, Shinra must have somehow “hijacked” their bomb.

Shinra wanted Avalanche to destroy this entire reactor to make people rally to their banner.  
  
Shinra... had doubtlessly been responsible for turning his previous from mission from a bit of pin-point sabotage into a sector-wide catastrophe. They were blowing up their own reactors, just so that they’d have more crimes to accuse Avalanche of.  
  
Every time Sephiroth thought Shinra had finally hit the bottom of the barrel, they found a way to drill through it.  
  
Heidegger flickered back into being, a terrifying smile on his face.

“Now let us raise the curtain on our main event! The trial of the eco-extremist group Avalanche!”  
  
As he spoke, Sephiroth’s keen eyes picked up the sight of an approaching transport helicopter.  
Underslung by an array of wires was the Airbuster itself.

It drew closer and closer, then the wires were released. The Airbuster plummeted out of the sky and landed on the catwalk before them, flexing its mechanical muscles in preparation for the battle to come.

“Terrorists who conspired with Wutai against Midgar! Your guilt is undeniable! Your punishment: death!” Heidegger crowed.

XX X XXX XXX

“I’m sick of this. I'm sick of all of this!” Tifa insisted as she approached one of the drones, and kicked it straight into the general’s holographic face.

“Shinra thinks they get to make all the rules because they’re stronger than everyone else? Well two can play that game. Let me show you just how _strong_ I am.” She promised.

The last five years of her life, they’d been nothing but an extended training session; for her, this was going to be her first real fight, and she wasn’t going to disappoint.  
  
Especially since the Airbuster had decided to focus on Sephiroth and Kadaj, leaving its back wide open to her.

She hopped up onto the metal “skirt” that contained the Airbuster’s engines, and then jumped up and wrapped both of her gloves around the behemoth’s neck. Shinra probably hadn’t been foolish enough to place the Airbuster’s central processing unit inside its head, but she had to start somewhere.  
  
Tifa could feel the Airbuster’s outer layer of armor starting to crumple beneath her grip as she tried to choke the non-existent life out of it.  
  
She was starting to feel the hair on her arms standing on end, and knew in her gut that it was time for a temporary retreat.

Tifa let go of the Airbuster and dropped to the ground, rolling away from it just as the machine let loose with a massive electrical discharge.

The moment the machine’s attack ended, Sephiroth launched his own, and Masamune’s blade tore away a chunk of the Airbuster’s armor.

There was another crackle of lighting as both Kadaj and Barret blasted the thing with their own electrical attacks, leaving the machine momentarily staggered.

Tifa’s eyes locked on the small gap Sephiroth had created in the Airbuster’s armor...

She kicked off the ground and leaped at the robot, landing on its skirt and driving an arm into the opening.

When she felt her fist brush up against something, Tifa yanked hard on it and pulled out a bright red wire.

The Airubster’s engines’ kicked into overdrive and it zoomed backwards, causing Tifa to loose her grip and drop to the ground.  
  
“You’ve seen but a fraction of this machine’s true capabilities!” Heidegger’s voice called out from somewhere overhead.

Bright purple light began to course along the Airbuster’s entire chassis, building up towards an aperture in the center of its body.

“Move!” Sephiroth shouted, though his warning was probably meant more for Kadaj than anyone else.  
  
Except that there was nowhere for them to move to; the Airbuster had parked itself at the dead center of the T-intersection, its chest weapon pointed towards the three of them, while Barret was still off to the side.

Well, there was _almost_ nowhere.

Tifa hopped to one of the railings and then jumped skyward with all of the force she could muster.  
  
A moment later the Airbuster’s weapon fired, releasing a beam of magenta energy two feet across that gouged a hole in the side of the reactor.

Thankfully, it had completely abated by the time Tifa landed. Risking a glance behind her, she saw that Sephiroth and Kadaj had flipped over the sides of the safety railings, and were now climbing back up.  
  
“Keep pouring it on!” Barret encouraged as he swapped ammo clips.

The Airbuster spread its arms wide… and then both of its limbs were launched free from its body by clusters of rocket boosters.  
  
One of the arms promptly circled around and headed straight for Avalanche’s leader.

Barret fired off a combination of bullets and lighting bolts, but it still wasn’t enough to stop one of the Airbuster’s fists from closing tight around him.  
  
Tifa didn’t think twice; now that the Airbuster’s main body no longer had arms to fight with, it was easier than ever for her to climb its body. From there, a quick jump allowed her to land on top of the limb holding Barret.

Tifa secured her precarious position with one hand, and tried to pry its fingers apart with her other.  
  
She was strong, but not strong enough to overcome the Airbuster’s grip.

“Need some help?” Kadaj offered as he landed on top of the flying arm a few moments after Tifa.  
  
“Yes.” She admitted.

Out of the corner of her eye she could see Sephiroth avoiding the energy rays fired off by the other hand while continuing to slice away at the Airbuster’s body.

“Try not to flinch okay?” Kadaj advised Barret, then drove his sword in between the Airbuster’s fingers.  
  
He shoved on the blade and Tifa joined him a moment later. Working together with Souba for leverage, the two of them managed to pry the fist open; dropping Barret down onto the walkway below.

That done, Kadaj began to slice away at the arm’s engines while Tifa hammered away at its individual digits.

As the arm’s engines began to falter and die, the errant limb veered back toward the Airbuster.

At the same time energy began to gather low on the Airbuster's trunk, accompanied by a bright crimson light.

“I’ve had enough of this.” Sephiroth declared.

He charged the machine, with Tifa and Kadaj a few steps behind.

Tifa unleashed a storm of blows upon the Airbuster's central focusing lens, pouring on strike after strike until the reinforced glass fractured, then shattered.

Kadaj leapt into the air to dance across the Airbuster's collar and shoulders, Souba's blades slicing parallel gouges into its face

Sephiroth plunged Masamune straight into the Airbuster's center mass, then ripped it down and away, steel parting like flesh in the path of the draw cut's inhuman force.

Whatever weapon it had been charging detonated… while it was still inside the machine.

The Airbuster exploded.

The massive concussive force tossed her up into the air and hurled her across the length of the room. The heat from the blast didn’t scorch her bald, but it felt like she’d just gotten the worst sunburn ever, and all across her body….

It was promptly followed by an entirely different kind of pain as she slammed back-first into the reactor's superstructure.  
  
Time seemed to slow down for an instant as Tifa realized what that meant and risked a glance downward, to behold a yawning void; she was about to plummet all the way down to Lower Midgar.

So after everything she’d been through, she was still going to die be falling. If she could draw a full breath, Tifa would have laughed at the absurdity.

Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, as if she was sinking through syrup.  
  
As she fell she spotted a pipe just right size for a handhold, and she grabbed it.  
  
Time seemed to speed back up again, now that she’d arrested her own downward momentum.

That was when she realized… there hadn’t been any handholds for Sephiroth.

That black and silver object that she’d been vaguely aware out of the corner of her eye, was General Sephiroth getting further and further away from her.  
  
He’d always seemed so calm and in control throughout the entire Airbuster fight- hell, the entire mission- but gravity might be the one foe even he couldn’t defeat.

She wanted to feel sorry for him, but right now she had her own problems to worry about...

/This AGAIN?\ Tifa groaned as her fingers clenched ever tighter around the pipe.  
  
/Well, nice try Planet, but Tifa Lockhart isn’t the same damsel in distress she was last time...\ She reassured herself.

Tifa was strong enough to pull herself up, she knew it, she wasn’t going to fall….  
  
There was a sound of creaking metal as the pipe she was hanging from began to bend and deform.

/OH COME ON!\  
  
It seemed that the more she tightened her grip, the more unsteady the thing she was gripping grew.

Urgent as it was, this was _not_ her most immediate problem.  
  
“SEPHIROTH!” Kadaj screamed, thrusting out a hand helplessly towards his older brother; his voice loud enough to hurt Tifa’s ears.

Her ears weren’t the only part of her that he was endangering, though; bolts of lighting ripped free from Kadaj’s body and lashed away at the reactor, one of them nearly zapping Tifa into a muscle spasm she could ill afford.

“Kadaj! Not. Helping!” Tifa screamed right back at him.  
  
There was a faint sound of sniffling as Kadaj struggled to fight back more tears, but the electrical discharges abated.

“You’re right. That… that wasn’t helping anyone. Heroes help people….” Kadaj spoke slowly, unsteadily, as if he was trying to make himself believe his own words.

His worries for Sephiroth aside, Kadaj was in a better position than Tifa. He’d managed to grab hold of a section of the walkway, and even after the blast it didn’t seem to have any trouble supporting his weight.  
  
“What can I do to help?” “What can I do to help?” The enthusiasm in Kadaj's voice sounded brittle, a thin shell over desperation.

Tifa looked back at the pipe, she gave it another thirty seconds at most before her weight tore it loose from the reactor and she took the exact same plunge Sephiroth had.  
  
“Think you can catch me?” She asked, regretting that this was this was the best idea she could come up with.

Kadaj glanced at the catwalk he was holding onto, then locked eyes with Tifa.

“I’d have to hold onto myself with only one hand, but I can do it!” He promised.

Tifa took a deep breath.  
  
She curled her body, bracing legs against the reactor wall, and then just as the pipe tore free,  
launched herself towards Kadaj.  
  
Tifa could feel the wind brushing against her bare skin, the pull of gravity seeking to once more yank her downwards into its pitiless embrace.

There were about a hundred different ways that this could end up killing them both.  
  
She tried not to think about those things, she tried to only think about Kadaj’s right hand that was reaching out towards her.

It didn’t work: if she missed him, if the shock of having to support two people with only one arm proved too great, if the catwalk itself couldn’t handle their combined weight….  
  
A black gloved hand seized her tightly by the wrist.  
  
Kadaj didn’t try to maintain his position, he instinctively rode out the transfer of momentum, and swung Tifa up towards the catwalk he was clinging to. She grabbed hold of it with her free hand and desperately pulled herself upwards onto something approaching solid ground.

The moment she was across the threshold, she yanked on Kadaj’s arm so hard he practically flew over the railing.

“Thanks for catching me.” She gasped, struggling to avoid a fit of hyperventilation.  
  
“Thanks for pulling me up.” Kadaj answered.

“All on board for the getting the hell out of here express...” Barret called out as he yanked Tifa to her feet.  
  
Her legs still shook slightly, but once she actually made an effort they easily bore up under her weight.

/Seriously, what are the odds that I’d find myself hanging on for dear life three times?\ Tifa Lockhart couldn’t help but think to herself.

XXX XXX XXX  
  
/Seriously, what are the odds I’d come here to tend the flowers and find someone had crashed through the roof a second time?\ Aerith Gainsborough couldn’t help but think to herself.  
  
End Chapter.  
  
AN: So to start with, remember how I said Nibelheim happened a little differently which resulted a different version of Tifa Lockhart? Well Nibelheim happened a little differently and so it resulted in a different version of Tifa Lockhart.

A “breaching round” is a specially designed shotgun slug made for damaging doors and forcing them open. Given that in the remake Barret has a long reload high powered single shot attack (Overcharge) it’s not unreasonable that he has options for firing such a round from his arm.

It hurts my suspension of disbelief slightly that in the remake our heroes are within touching distance of the Airbuster, yet decide to leave it alone after noting that they’d have trouble against it in a straight up fight. Why not just have Cloud hack away at it with his sword while its deactivated until its just a pile of scrap? That’s why in this version Avalanche are never in the same room as it is until they have to fight it.

The term Sephiroth uses to address Heidegger: “REMF” is military slang for personnel who are never on the front-line; it stands for Rear Echelon… well you can probably guess the rest.

The exact meaning of a “brevet” promotion varies from army to army, but the general (pun not intended) rule of thumb is that they’re given out as a reward for you doing something praiseworthy during a war, but aren’t actually a true promotion. In the US army, (or at least the early US army, since brevetting went away in 1922 and various medals started to be given out instead) for example; brevet promotions aren’t supposed to last any longer than the conflict that they are earned in does.  
  
Basically, the most obvious explanation of his rank would be that Sephiroth was so amazing at killing people during the war that he was brevetted all the way up to General. Then when the war ended, President Shinra realized that it would be a bad publicity, especially among Shinra’s SOLDIERs and those who aspired to become SOLDIERs, for him to “demote” Sephiroth back to his original rank. Thus, he simply let the brevet rank stand far longer than it should have, because why be a tyrant if you’re not going to ignore the rules the moment they become they inconvenience you?  
  
Likewise the phrase “noncom” means “Non-commissioned officer” it refers to someone whose rank is no higher than Sergeant at best. Heidegger is using it to insult Sephiroth because he (Sephiroth) never attended the Shinra equivalent of West Point.

If you were interested; my editor was quick to point out that voltage is not actually a measurement of current. So we decided to look into how electrically resistant garments are actually rated….

It turns out they’re either rated in highly technical terms that would only mean something to a person who actually does a lot of electrical work… or they’re rated in voltage.

If you’re super interested, half a million volts is the standard amount of resistance desired you’re working with live wires; given that in the remake elite shock troops have “pulse shot” a magical attack that seems to be chiefly electrical in nature, their suits might actually be rated to protect above a million volts, but it’s not like that guy had any pressing reason to tell Kadaj the exact truth anyway.

Tifa’s father is never directly named in any of the games/movies/etc, but his original concept art labeled him as “Brian Lockhart” so that is what I’m using in this story.

President Shinra’s monologue about who he is happens to simply be a slightly altered and much abridged version of another literary speech. Kudos to anyone who can guess where it came from...  
  
Finally, yes, Heidegger’s “Shinra didn’t want the war to end” argument is entirely my own invention, but I feel it’s a fairly reasonable one. How else do you explain the Wutain War lasting for eight years as an actual war given the disparity of the forces involved, unless for some reason Shinra wasn’t fully committed to winning?  
  
As for why they might not want to win, well that’s obvious enough, fighting a war with Wutai makes a convenient way to excuse how terrible life is the vast majority of people in Midgar, basically the exact same reasons that they want to restart the war in the FF7 remake.

After all, they supposedly started the war over wanting to build a mako reactor in Wutai, but six years after the war ended, there’s still no reactor. It’s like they were more interested in having a reason to go to war than actually building that reactor…  
  
  



	9. Buddy's real talent was beating people up, his heart wasn't in it but the crowd ate it up.

Ah… pain. It’d been a long time since Sephiroth had experienced the sensation. He didn't care for it.

Things that Sephiroth didn’t care for didn’t last long, especially not things within his own body.  
  
Broken bones knitted, blood that had been internally pooling went back to internally flowing, bruises faded, and scraped skin sewed itself back together.  
  
Having resolved all the simple problems created by his fall, it was time to deal with the more complicated ones….

“Woah... never seen that before.”

Sephiroth opened his eyes.

Honey-brown hair, long. Green eyes, non-luminous. A preponderance of pink. Tilting his neck downwards revealed a pair of hideous boots.

“You… again?” Sephiroth couldn’t help but wonder how improbable it was that he’d wind up meeting this woman a second time.

“Well it looks like whatever else that fall did to you, you’re not suffering from amnesia…. Or really any other injuries I can see...” The woman sounded… uneasy. Understandable; people who'd been forced to witness his regenerative abilities often found them alarming.  
  
“Where am I?”

“An old church in the Sector Five slums. You came crashing through the roof without so much as a ‘look out below.’ Fell right into my flower bed. Lucky for you. Like, really.” The florist answered.

Sephiroth looked up as he rose to his feet; he could see a noticeable gap in the ceiling above him, confirming his recollection of slamming into a roof. A glance at his feet confirmed that he had, indeed, landed in the middle of a patch of flowers.

"I've intruded in your life a second time and ruined your garden; I'm sorry." It was a wholly inadequate apology, but the best he could do.

The woman tilted her head up towards the ceiling and then back down to him.  
  
“You don’t need to apologize. I doubt you _planned_ to crash through my roof. Besides, they're a lot tougher than they look. This place... It has a kind of power. I’m Aerith Gainsborough by the way.”

If she was waiting for Sephiroth to introduce himself she’d be waiting a very long time.

Before the awkward conversation could continue any further, the church's doors slammed open.

“I’ll see myself in, thanks...” A profoundly cocky voice declared.

Sephiroth turned his glare on a familiar red haired man in a rumpled blue suit. He was sure that Shinra had suffered a fair amount of turnover since he’d left their service, but somehow he’d known that Reno wouldn’t be among them. Sephiroth even suspected that the Turk had even probably managed to snag a few pay raises or even promotions since they’d last met; he had a devious mind, when he actually bothered to use it.

“Uhh… Sis... who is this guy?” Reno’s turquoise eyes abruptly went wide the moment he got a good look at Sephiroth.  
  
“He’s my bodyguard... and a SOLDIER. Pretty cool huh?” Aerith taunted Reno with the impish tones of a child sitting on top of an impossibly high wall with a huge pile of rocks next to them.  
  
Sephiroth wasn’t the least bit surprised that she’d been able to recognize him as a SOLDIER given the mako glow in his eyes. He was mildly surprised to learn that he was now her bodyguard… but if it meant interfering with Shinra’s plans he’d play along.

“I believe you!” Reno insisted at once, his head bobbing up and down like a bouncing ball. “Gotta say, he makes a guy feel a little inadequate; big guy like that, with those bright green eyes...”  
  
There were three troopers accompanying Reno, one of them in a red outfit indicating higher rank. All of them were carrying rifles, and one of lower ranked troopers began to slowly and uncertainly raise their weapon.  
  
Reno heard the telltale “click” of a disengaging safety and promptly delivered a spin kick that knocked his own subordinate into one of the church’s pews, sending their gun clattering to the floor.  
  
“Whoops, sorry about that!” Reno grinned nervously. “I just get these weird twitches sometimes, probably because it’s nearly noon and yet I’m still sober. You know what a harmless drunk I am!”

Sephiroth would be more inclined to believe that if he hadn’t read the reports of Reno once taking on an entire bar full of arms smugglers singlehanded. He would have been even more impressed if Reno had known they were arms smugglers before he started the brawl.  
  
Then the Turk walked slowly and deliberately over to the other Shinra trooper and slapped him on the back.

“Now then, what you gotta understand is, what’s-his-face here is having lady trouble. I told him that I could hook him up with the: one, singular, only, uno, person in Midgar who sells flowers that aren’t made out of plastic, guaranteed to set a gentle lady’s heart aflutter.

“Then ‘like-I-care’ over there and ‘you-with-the-head’ bet me that I was full of it, so I had to bring them along to prove that wasn’t the case and collect my winnings! Funny story, right?” Reno explained, the smile on his lips never reaching his eyes.

“So, with that in mind, there’s: no, zero, zip, zilch, nadda, bupkis, squadoo, reason for me to be getting into any sorta fight with your new bodyguard! We’re just here to buy some flowers!” Reno was clearly trying to substitute enthusiasm for credibility.  
  
“That’s good, because I’d hate to think you came intending to do something that could have ended up hurting my flowers.”  
  
There was an edge to her voice that Sephiroth hadn’t expected.

“You’ve got me all wrong, the last thing I want is for any flowers to get hurt! I’m a huge fan of horticulture, ask anybody! Now then, why don’t you make like a gentleman and ask the nice flower lady how much it will cost you to buy some of her wares?” The Turk suggested leaning more heavily on the guard.  
  
As he did so, Reno also casually manipulated his baton in order to knock the trooper’s rifle out of his hands.  
  
“Idiot didn’t even realize that you can’t carry a flower while holding a gun at the same time! I tried to tell him he shouldn’t even bring it, everybody knows this neighborhood is a wonderful safe place where nobody ends up getting gruesomely murdered! It sure has got a lovely reputation for that!”

The now disarmed man began to slowly approach Aerith with all the enthusiasm of a convict heading to the gallows.

“How… how...much?” He stammered out, evidently able to feel Sephiroth’s eyes boring into his back.  
  
“Well as my new bodyguard could attest, I charge people based on how much it seems like they need my flowers. For you maybe… 5,000 gil?” Aerith pondered, her tone carrying just enough innocence for plausible deniability.  
  
“I haven’t got that much on me!” The guard half protested half whimpered.

In the blink of an eye Reno was at the man’s side, leaning against him menacingly.  
  
”Which is the other reason why I made sure to come along! See, I knew that you, being an ordinary flower lady who is far nicer than this city deserves, wouldn’t have a scanner to make use of a Shinra charge card.

But, as a member of the Investigation Sector of the General Affairs Department, I’m authorized to sign Shinra Vouchers with our department seal on them; nobody is gonna tell you those aren’t worth the amount printed on them. If somebody does, we’ll make sure to pay them a visit! So, I believe you said it would cost five….”  
  
“I’m running a special, two for fifteen thousand.”

“What a bargain!” Reno agreed at once; withdrawing a collection of vouchers from his suit, and filling one out so fast it was a wonder the ink had time to dry.  
  
He ripped it out of the book presented it to Aerith, who handed over a blossom to the guard then gently attached a white starry flower to Reno’s suit.  
  
“I think that flower does wonders for your outfit. You see, Reno, you look a lot better when you’re actually making an effort.”

“Make, an, effort! I will not be forgetting that wise advice any time soon!”

Then Reno turned around and dragged the flower holding guard along with his right hand.  
  
He also gently slid his baton into its holster so that his left hand was free to drag the still unconscious guard along with him as well. No one made any effort to retrieve either of the assault rifles that Reno had knocked to the floor as the Shinra employees beat a hasty retreat.  
  
It was only once Reno ever so gently eased the door closed behind him, that Aerith let out a giggle of delight.  
  
“Wow, I’d forgotten how great it was to have a guy I could depend on. Do you charge by the hour?”

“...What...?” Was the most cogent reply he could muster.  
  
Aerith chuckled to herself, seemingly just as amused by his consternation as she had been by Reno’s none too well concealed horror and subsequent begging for his life.

“Look, l can tell that you used to be a SOLDIER. Since you’ve obviously left Shinra, that probably means you’re a mercenary now, right? That or you run a weapons store, and are doing some really aggressive advertising.” She explained, taking a moment to playfully display the 15,000 gil voucher she’d just obtained.

Sephiroth was tempted to tell her that he wasn’t a mercenary, he was a terrorist; the acts of violence he committed were motivated solely by ideology, not something as banal as a payment. Alas, persuasive as it might be, the full, unvarnished truth would likely be more trouble than it was worth.

He decided that to try a different approach.

“You do realize that if I really only cared about money I could just yank that voucher right out of your hands?”  
  
She did not pull the voucher back or otherwise try to prevent him from seizing it. No, instead she all but waved the thing in his face.  
  
“You probably could do that. My last boyfriend was a SOLDIER and he could pick me up with one hand like it was nothing. If you really wanted to steal from me though, why would you warn me beforehand?”

“This isn’t about me or what I’m going to do next. This is about you. Why are you so important that Shinra would send a Turk after you? From the overly casual tone he took, and you didn’t rebuke, it sounded like you’ve even talked before.” Sephiroth tried to steer the conversation onto a more productive topic.  
  
As he did so, his mind rapidly ran through various different scenarios, looking for one that could put the events he’d just seen into some kind of reasonable context. Was she the daughter or younger sister of a Turk? The lovechild of some Shinra executive?  
  
“Dunno. You heard Reno, I’m just an ordinary local florist.” Aerith insisted, sounding scarcely more believable than the red haired Turk had.

He’d also insinuated that Aerith was the _**only**_ florist in all of Midgar, if this woman was truly “ordinary” then Sephiroth would eat Masamune.

He needed to find a way to link back up with Avalanche, but at the same time… Shinra was committing a lot of resources into trying to lean on this woman. Why?

It was at moments like these when he realized just how right Barret had been. He should never have let himself get caught up in his Quest and allow the rest of the Planet go about its business without him. If he hadn’t spent the last five years in the Lifestream his knowledge of Shinra’s plans would be a far more up to date.  
  
Missions had to come first, and when you were General Sephiroth, there was always another mission.

“Hey, don’t Turks keep an eye out for potential SOLDIERs and stuff? Maybe he thought I could be the greatest SOLDIER yet, the one to finally surpass General Sephiroth himself!” Aerith suggested eagerly.

Oh. Now she was just winding him up on purpose!

Even worse, for some absurd reason it was working!

“You realize **I** _am_ General Sephiroth?”  
  
“I felt it would be rude to assume.”  
  
“Moving on... adult SOLDIER candidates tend to be recruited from either already-serving Shinra military personnel or highly conditioned professional athletes, not florists.”  
  
“Well, there goes my hopes and dreams of one day jumping from roof top to rooftop with a handsome man cradled in my arms.” Aerith pouted.

“Being a SOLDIER isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It used to make me feel like I was making the Planet a better place, but now...”

“Now it doesn’t, but that’s why you stopped being one. Because you want to make a difference.” Aerith pointed out, gently resting a hand on Sephiroth’s shoulder.

Or more accurately, trying to rest a hand on Sephiroth’s shoulder; he flinched away before her bare hand could touch his black coat.  
  
Sephiroth said nothing, but shot her a sullen, disapproving look.

“If you still want to make a difference, you could walk me home. You’ll probably get to scare the pants off of another Turk before we get there.”

“I suppose I might as well.”  
  
“That’s great! Of course I’m going to have to try and find some way to reward my silver knight for his service. Since you weren’t interested in money, maybe I could take you out on a date?”

Sephiroth looked at her.

He continued to look at her.

Sephiroth had to get back in touch of Avalanche, he had to destroy six other mako reactors, he had to see to it that several Shinra executives were properly punished for their crimes and the entire organization was humbled; a date was out of the question.

“Wow, you are nothing like the last guy to fall through my church’s ceiling. Got it, no dates, message received loud and clear.” Aerith apologized.  
  
Sephiroth thought she might be making some sort of a joke at his expense but with this ineffable woman who could be sure?

XXX XXX XXX  
  
“Good afternoon Rude!” Aerith cheerfully waved up at the bald dark skinned man in the immaculate blue suit and black sunglasses.  
  
She was fairly certain that given Rude’s position, he was waiting more or less exactly where she would have emerged if she’d tried to sneak out the back of the Church. So it was a good thing that she'd decided on just leaving through the front door side by side with new bodyguard; she’d tried to suggest arm in arm, but just gotten another extended silent stare, punctuated by a raised eyebrow.

Rude took a long look at Aerith and her companion.  
  
He adjusted his sunglasses.  
  
Rude took another long look at Aerith and her companion.  
  
Rude silently returned her wave.

XXX XXX XXX

Reno knew that this was not a situation that called for undue amounts of panic as he dialed a number on his cell phone.  
  
“Tseng.” Was the only response he got once the connection was established.

“Hibbity jibbity, odalalee, mugwump, ho, ha, heurrrhhhh….. GENERAL SEPHHHIRRRROTHHHHH!” Reno screamed into the phone.

This was however, a situation that called for displaying the correct amount of panic. Reno felt like he’d nailed it, personally.

“Reno, how much have you been drinking today?”

“Forget what I’ve been drinking, the Ancient extraction mission is scotched!”

“Because?” Tseng’s tone was so leading even the most senile judge in the world would have protested it.

“I already told you Boss, because of General Sephiroth! I walked in there, and I barely walked out again with my life! Supposedly he’s her new bodyguard! I think he might be mildly peeved about the entire ‘left for dead’ thing Shinra did to him!” Reno rolled his eyes, glad that the call was voice only.

“Reno, did you just roll your eyes at me?”  
  
There were times when Reno regretted having a superior who was so amazing at his job.

“Yes.” He admitted in the sullen pouty tones of a child who had been caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

“So, you expect me to believe that General Sephiroth showed up out of nowhere and decided to protect that girl? Did he show any signs of realizing how important she is?”  
  
“Some good news there, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t. If he had, then I’d probably need to be reporting my status via rhythmically blinking my eyelids after he broke every bone in my body. That’s assuming he didn’t just flat out kill me.

The bad news is that I’m going to need you to okay an expense report of 15,000 gil for flower purchases.”  
  
“Why are you planning to charge the company fifteen thousand gil for a flower?” Reno could “hear” Tseng’s brow furrowing over the phone.  
  
“First off, it was two flowers! Secondly, think of it less as me buying blossoms, and more like I was bribing the guards at a security checkpoint not shoot me in the face repeatedly. Except it was less shoot me in the face, and more cut me up into enough pieces that each Sector could get their own chunk.” Reno insisted, placing a hand over his heart and close to the flower he was still wearing.

“So you walked in, discovered you were face to face with General Sephiroth, that she’d flipped him, you used purchasing flowers as a cover story, she didn’t believe it, and you got charged you through the nose.” Tseng concluded.

There was a reason why Reno did not try to bullshit his boss.  
  
“Got it in one. Listen, this means one of two things. Either, I’m the first one to spot General Sephiroth and that means I deserve a huge bonus for discovering a possible major threat to Shinra, or I’m not the first one. If I’m not the first one, why the hell weren’t any of us briefed about the fact that Midgar has a… a…. a… General Sephiroth wandering around loose?!” Reno blustered; unable to find a metaphor that conveyed just how big a threat he was dealing with, so resorted to tautologies.  
  
“Reno, was the girl still in her normal location?”  
  
“I thought that was already implied, but yes. The Sector Five Church, same as usual.” Reno answered without hesitation, wondering what Tseng was contemplating this time.  
  
“The Sector Five Reactor was blown to pieces by Avalanche only a few hours before you spotted Sephiroth in the same Sector. Shinra even broadcast video of the terrorists doing the deed… except it looked like it had been edited by dozen different people first. It was all at odd angels, almost like it was trying to keep anyone who watched it from seeing something.”

“You don’t think...”

“Public Safety.” Reno would never ceased to be amazed by how Tseng could make those two words sound like he surely must have added “Those Motherf**kers” under his breath.

“They don’t share their intel with us, I walk into a gigantic silver ambush, look like an idiot, and we end up getting our budget cut again!” Reno spat.

“Exactly.”

“What’s our counter move?” Reno could feel his blood starting to boil; unlike at the church this was a fight they could win.

“I’m going to lean on a few of the people in that department who owe me favors. Find out what they know, and when they knew it.”  
  
Reno suddenly felt a brief twinge of something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“Boss… are we bad people?” He wondered, his tone far more introspective than normal.  
  
“We’re Turks.”

“I understand. I mean, I know we’re bad people, but are we _**bad**_ people? Like, General Sephiroth is walking around with Shinra’s Ancient, we’ve got no clear plan on how to get her back, and our first priority is dealing with internal power plays. A part of me can’t help but wonder if maybe our we’re doing something wrong...” Reno admitted, feeling his cheeks flush with embarrassment at breaking departmental policy by using the “W” word.

“Even secure phones are no place to discuss this matter. Circle up with Rude and get back to HQ. Also, excellent job staying alive.” Tseng added before hanging up.  
  
Reno felt an awkward swell of pride in his breast as he realized that yes, he had done an excellent job of staying alive! It might not sound like much, but Wutai had entire army full of people, or to be more exact they _**used to**_ have an entire army full of people who hadn’t managed to achieve the same result after getting on General Sephiroth’s bad side!

XXX XXX XX  
  
The trip back to Aerith’s home from the church was one she’d made a great many times before. It wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, but it was blessedly free of Turks, garbage fires, and additional stoic men dropping from the sky.  
  
There were some monsters that needed to be frightened off by a few whacks from her retractable staff, there were a few things that needed to be climbed, and thus inevitably a few things that needed to be jumped down from.

She’d made the same jump every day she went to the church. Sephiroth had made it with an air of complete and utter tedium; now it was Aerith’s turn.

As she prepared for it, her concentration was shattered by the screeching of a bird. She turned in the sound’s direction, and found a pigeon flying straight at her. Flailing her arms, Aerith managed to ward off the avian missile, but lost her balance in the process.

She tripped over the side of the building and started plummeting towards the ground.

Her eyes’ locked on Sephiroth’s. She didn’t have time to speak but her lips began to frame the word “please” as the ground rose up at her with dreadful speed.

She landed softly in his outstretched arms.

“My hero!” She declared, beaming up at him.  
  
Sephiroth just tilted his head to the side in silent confusion at first.

“Are you hurt?” He eventually asked, his voice strangely uncertain.

“I’m fine.” She reassured him.  
  
He slowly and carefully, placed her on the ground, then abruptly broke contact to withdraw back five paces.

“Why did you call me a hero?”

“You caught me.” Aerith replied, now starting to feel quite a bit confused herself.  
  
“I don’t like seeing people get hurt. It was easy to catch you. There’s nothing heroic about doing the bare minimum.”

Then Sephiroth stopped and began to shake his right hand, the one he’d used to brace her head while catching her. It was a small thing… but it was more of a reaction than he’d shown after falling into her church.

“Is your hand okay?”  
  
“...”  
  
Aerith sighed and slowly reached back into the pink bow that she used to bind her hair.  
  
“If it helps, the only reason I can think of for it to be feeling weird is this...” She explained while pulling out the materia that she kept hidden there.

Sephiroth’s eyes widened with the first real genuine shock she’d seen him display. He looked helplessly torn, as if he was both intrigued and yet at the same time repulsed by the sight of her materia.

“Is it unique?” Sephiroth sounded almost reverent.  
  
“It is! It’s a special materia that was a gift from my mother. I just wish I knew what it did.” reluctantly added, her exuberance wavering.

Aerith didn’t know all that much about materia, but she knew that their standard colors were: green, red, blue, purple, and yellow. Her mother’s materia though, glowed with white energy.

White energy that seemed to leave Sephiroth on pins and needles until she returned the materia to its normal resting place.

XXX XXX XXX

“So... what's your favorite flower?” Aerith asked him out of nowhere as the two of them were making their way through the streets of Sector Five.

“ _Dionaea muscipula.”_

He’d read some botany books just to pass the time once.  
  
As it turned out, his answer evidently effected her enough that she felt the need to turn around and face him.

“Most people go with roses, or daisies, but I probably should have seen that coming.”

Sephiroth could see what she was thinking. She was probably ruminating on how he’d selected that particular “flower” because of its violent nature.

“Venus flytraps are hardy, they’re survivors; they’ve got a different approach to life than most other flowers, but they know how to make it work. Besides, they’re kinda cute in a way; they’re friends with the bugs that pollinate them.” Aerith noted serenely.

He could have argued that since the spreading of pollen was necessary to insure the growth of more flowers, it meant that flytraps not feasting on the insects which spread theirs’ was simply a trait aimed at ensuring the propagation of the species. It had nothing to do with a concept as anthropomorphic as “friendship”.

He could have, but he didn’t.

He had more important things to do; Sephiroth kept trying to properly calibrate his expectations relating to this woman, and for some reason he kept failing. Why was he having so much trouble discerning her patterns?

“Sorry I didn’t have any on me when we first met, they’re not exactly a big seller. Even florists have to try and follow market trends.” Aerith reflected turning back around.

Sephiroth didn’t see why; as the sole source of flowers in Midgar she had a monopoly to rival Shinra’s, even if it was on a less vital commodity.

“So I notice you don’t have the flower I sold you anymore. Give it to someone?” Aerith abruptly pressed.

“Just my younger brother; he’s far more of a romantic than I am.” Sephiroth was glad that he could easily parry that particular verbal thrust.

“My house is just up this path. Mom should be home by now, I’ll introduce you.” Aerith noted, turning her eyes towards the buildings they were approaching.  
  
Just when he thought he’d finally gotten to solid ground; he heard the distinctive “click” of a landmine beneath hits boots; this woman was truly relentless.

“Say that again?” Sephiroth meekly requested.

“My house is just up this path. Mom should be home by now, I’ll introduce you.” She repeated with the same blithe tone.

“….” Sephiroth was silent “loudly” enough that Aerith noticed.

“You aren’t interested in money or going on a date, but you should at least let her make you some food for keeping me safe.”

Sephiroth wanted to protest that he wasn’t especially interested in food either, but his traitorous stomach had other ideas. He’d left for the reactor raid late at night, and it was now probably around four in the afternoon the next day. In short, it’d been over eighteen hours since he’d last eaten. Sustenance was probably the one form of payment he couldn’t bring himself to refuse at the moment.

Once he got a good look at Aerith’s home he wasn’t sure if he should be pleased or angry with himself… because it looked _exactly_ like he would have expected it to.

Not in the minor things like having tall slanted triangular windows, or the rooftop patio, but it was by far the cleanest, most well cared for house in the slums. Even more tellingly, there were several trays of flowers set up in front of it and the walkway leading up to it was overgrown with all manner of brightly colored flora.

In short, the sight of her house reconfirmed Sephiroth’s suspicions that there was nothing out of the ordinary about the church he’d fallen into; but there _was_ quite a lot out of the ordinary about the woman who grew flowers there.

Sephiroth ended up nearly colliding with Aerith as both of them went for the door-handle at the same time.  
  
“I’m your bodyguard, shouldn’t I go first?” He pointed out.

“Right now, you’re just my guest.” Aerith countered and Sephiroth stepped back, conceding the point  
  
Sephiroth’s predictions about what he’d find inside the house were more or less on the money, a well kept scene of domestic tranquility; it was like he could predict everything about Aerith, except for how she’d behave,  
  
“I’m home...” She cheerfully called out after closing the door behind him.

“Hey baby. Been up to no good? I got a polite call from Rude earlier today. Even politer than usual in fact...” Answered a woman who was bent over a sink.  
  
She turned to face the two and might have said more if she wasn’t struck silent by the sight of her daughter’s bodyguard/guest.

For his part Sephiroth did a quick and simple analysis of the woman who was clearly Aerith’s mother. Hair a slightly lighter shade of brown than Aerith’s, unremarkable green dress and white apron. She had the careworn features of someone who’d been born and spent their entire lives in Lower Midgar.

Sensing the building tension in the room, Aerith did her best to break it.  
  
“So... this is Elmyra Gainsborough. Mom, this my new bodyguard, Sephiroth.” Aerith awkwardly made introductions.  
  
“I’m really just a concerned third party.” Sephiroth tried to protest, every bit as awkwardly.  
  
Was there a look of… something… that passed between mother and daughter in the wake of his introduction, or were Sephiroth’s already heightened senses so on edge that he was now fooling himself into seeing things that didn’t actually exist?

“Didn’t you _die_ five years ago?” Elmyra raised the obvious question.

Sephiroth shrugged.

“Reports of my death were greatly exaggerated.”

“Take good care of her?” Elmyra asked brusquely while actually advancing towards him, seemingly falling back on routine in the face of an impossibility.  
  
Just the sight of Sephiroth had sent a Turk who murdered people for a living running for his life, yet this ordinary middle aged woman was advancing on him.  
  
It actually made him less perplexed in the grand scheme of things, since now he understood where Aerith got it from. If Shinra had given him a battalion of Gainsboroughs he could have conquered Wutai in a weekend.

"You'd have to ask her.” Sephiroth suggested, his tone standoffish but notimpolite.

Not only was it the best way to immediately remove himself from the conversation, but hopefully if he heard Aerith describe what he’d accomplished in her own words, it might provide him with the Rosetta Stone he needed finally to make sense of her.

“He did a great job Mom. He’s also going to be heading back to Sector Seven soon. But since he was kind enough to help keep me safe I figured we could at least give him something to eat first. Then I’ll show him the way back.”

“I can get around Lower Midgar by myself just fine.” Sephiroth couldn’t help but interject, worried about placing more burdens on Aerith’s shoulders.  
  
“Even with the trains all shut down because of the reactor attack? I sell flowers across the entire city so I know all sorts of ways to get around.” Aerith countered, just the tiniest touch of pride in her voice.

“You just aren’t going to accept ‘no’ for answer are you?” Sephiroth guessed, having at least detected this particular pattern in Aerith’s behavior.

“Nope!” She giggled, quite pleased with herself.

“Why not wait until tomorrow? If you head out now it’ll be dark when you get back. Better to rest up here, and make the trip first thing in the morning; when you’ll have daylight to spare.” Elmyra cut in, even going so far as to gently place her arms on Aerith’s own.

Sephiroth had never been quite so grateful for the fierceness of middle aged matrons.  
  
Except... that sort of arm on arm restraint like… was that a thing family members normally did? Regrettably he didn’t have any familial experiences of his own to compare it against.

Aerith simply waited and said nothing until her mother let go of her and then began to fish around in her dress.

“By the way Mom, I hope you can find a good use for this...” Aerith offered as she handed over the Shinra voucher that Reno had signed for her.

Elmyra spent a very long ten seconds just starring at it, especially at the “15,000” that had hastily scrawled on it.

“Aerith, how did you get this?!”

“Sephiroth helped me sell some flowers. I think he could have a bright future as a florist if he learned to stop scowling at the customers.” Aerith explained with that serene smile Sephiroth was starting to suspect always indicated that she was actually hiding something.

Elmyra cast a very suspicious look in Sephiroth’s direction.  
  
“I hope selling flowers is all the two of you did together...”

Aerith just smiled and giggled in response.

“Don’t worry, you’d like this one Mom. I offered him a date, and he just looked at me like I’d slapped him in the face with a fish.”

That was a completely inaccurate description of Sephiroth’s reaction, but he wasn’t going to waste time debating it.

“Anyway, I’m gonna go get cleaned up, then I’ll help cook dinner since we’re gonna need enough for three people tonight.” She promised before heading upstairs.  
  
“My daughter, she’s something of a handful isn’t she?” Elmyra admitted once said daughter was out of earshot.  
  
“I’ve been in fights to the death that were less exhausting than spending time in her company.” Sephiroth admitted, glad to have a chance to finally say it out loud.

Elmyra was kind enough to turn her head to the side so that she wasn’t looking directly at Sephiroth when she snickered.

Then all of a sudden her expression hardened.

“I hate to ask, but would you leave tonight? Without any fuss… no questions?”  
  
“Done.”

“Thank you. I'm sorry to ask it, but nothing is more important to me than Aerith's safety... You boys made a choice; traded a normal life for power. You can’t have it both ways.” Elmyra added, her tone firm, but not unkind.  
  
A choice.  
  
“No," Sephiroth hissed. "You can't."

The words left his mouth accompanied by a trail of white mist, and tiny tendrils of hoarfrost began to spread across the petals of a several nearby flowers.

Sephiroth was a SOLDIER; he would always be a SOLDIER, but he had never been given a choice on the exchange that so concerned Elmyra. How much of a difference that actually made, was a question he didn't enjoy meditating on.

Elmyra drew back and a hand towards her mouth in shock, either at Sephiroth’s tone or the way the temperature was starting to edge downwards.

“I’m back!” Aerith called out as she descended the stairs.  
  
Sephiroth got his magic back under control and Elmyra turned her attention on her daughter instead of her bodyguard/guest.

Even though the two were doing their best to pretend nothing had happened, Sephiroth could see in Aerith’s eyes that she knew something unpleasant had taken place while she was a way… but she chose not to comment on it.

XXX XXX XXX  
  
The meal Aerith and her mother made for him was fine.

The bed they provided was horrible.

Sephiroth tossed and turned, trying to find some way to get comfortable. It was like lying on a marshmallow, every moment he let his mind wander it told him that he was going to sink right to the floor.

Eventually he simply grabbed the pillow, stood up, then laid back down on the floor.

The floorboards felt firm, familiar, and comforting beneath his back. Now, Sephiroth might actually be able to grab a two hour catnap before he snuck out so that Aerith didn’t get any more tangled up in his life.  
  
He still wanted to know why exactly Shinra was so interested in her, but working with Avalanche to disable more mako reactors had to come first. That went double given that Aerith had insisted on being so cagey with him.

Granted, he’d also been a long way from forthcoming with her, but he was General Sephiroth; his entire life story was one massive collection of horrible secrets; what could this local florist be so worried about hiding? All Sephiroth knew for sure was that he refused to spend the entire night pondering the mysterious woman.

XXX XXX XXX

“Reno?” Rude asked his partner as he entered into the General Affairs Auditing Department’s meeting room.  
  
Reno, as per usual, was making himself at home on the couch, his attention focused on the room’s television. Strangely he seemed to be watching old Shinra company files instead of a sporting event, cartoon, or pirate broadcast of a satirical news show whose host Reno had mysteriously failed to assassinate at least half a dozen times.  
  
“So, your body's changing, believe me, I know how that feels...” Announced a recorded General Sephiroth who was standing in the middle of a blank white void… that must have been digitally created and thus required MORE work than just having him stand in front of a brick wall.

Reno peeled his eyes away from the screen and greeted Rude with his traditional slightly too wide smile.

“Rude, good to see you! Speaking of seeing people, you saw him too, right?” Reno gestured vaguely at the man on the screen.

“Yes.”  
  
“Great, well then, the good news is that I’m not crazy, the bad news is that we’re all going to die.” He practically giggled with manic intensity.

“Enjoying yourself?”  
  
Reno nodded.  
  
“Oh yeah! I started going over Shinra’s archives looking to see if Sephiroth had any sort of weaknesses we could exploit, like some sort of war wound that never healed. No dice there… but I did find all the Public Service Announcements Shinra made him do after the Wutain War!” As he spoke Reno tapped a button on his remote and started the video playing again.

“Puberty can be an interesting time in a young man's life, you may discover hair in places you didn't have it before, new sensations, new desires, the ability to suddenly cast spells without the aid of Materia....” Recited Sephiroth, his voice even more dry and emotionless than normal.

“Can you believe somebody convinced him to do this? I’d say Shinra must have kidnapped his family, but he’s Sephiroth, he doesn’t have a family.”

“Why are you still watching them?”  
  
Reno took a swig from a glass of a clear liquid that was completely colorless and odorless, so there was a 25% chance it was water, and 75% chance it was vodka.

“They’re amazing. I can’t believe that Shinra let a little thing like him vanishing off the face of the Planet convince them to stop running them.”

“Puberty can be an interesting time in a young girl's life... what? What? That's it. I'm done. Get Scarlet in here if this matters so much, let her do it!” A recorded Sephiroth protested.

“Who thought that one was a good idea?” Rude wondered.

“Professor Hojo, he claims that girls who watched it were four times more likely to show signs of puberty than girls who didn’t within the same age bracket. I think he was just pulling numbers out of his ass, I mean… he’s not THAT pretty. Asshole still makes it unfair for the rest of us though...

“Many of you may be considering a career in the wonderful world of science.

Don't.

Don't even think about it.

Not unless you desire to spend the rest of your lives slaving away under the thumb of a crazy maniac who will steal all your best ideas just like how he stole his current position away from Professor Gast; who was a far superior scientist in every way possible, BECAUSE HE ACTUALLY BOTHERED TO WRITE LAB REPORTS!”

“Crazy.”

“The bloopers get crazier.”

“Bloopers?”

“Yeah, this made the final cut. The Shinra marketing department showed this to children, and for some reason _**we’re**_ considered the real monsters? Life isn’t fair.”

“Okay, what’s actually in the bloopers?” Rude couldn’t help but ask, once again being drawn into one of his partner’s latest bout of eccentricity.

“The bloopers are just him curled up in a corner crying while asking Professor Gast why he had to leave him, then when he realizes it’s still recording he sets the camera on fire. I actually felt a little bad watching them.” Reno sighed, momentarily despondent.

“Anyway, thanks to watching these things, I've come up with a brilliant plan. I'm going to download all of them onto my phone, and the next time I encounter Sephiroth I'll play one of them, and die of embarrassment!” He bounced right back to exuberant.  
  
"You'll... die of embarrassment?" Rude tried to parse his partner’s somewhat imprecise language.

"Well, technically, I'll die of _his_ embarrassment, but what a parting shot! Because he **will** murder me within five seconds of pressing play, but the rest of Avalanche can never un-see it."

Rude had no comeback.

“Hello, I'm General Sephiroth. Here to talk to you about one of the most valuable traits a student or SOLDIER can have. Patience. Sometimes, patience is the key to victory. Sometimes, it leads to very little, and it seems like it's not worth it, and you wonder why you waited so long for something so disappointing... How many more of these?”

XXX XXX XXX  
  
Sephiroth awoke from his slumber two hours after he drifted off, exactly as he’d intended to. He stood up, took one moment to stretch and then turned his attention to the room’s window.  
  
One twist of a latch to unlock it, a gentle push to open it, and then he just needed to make sure Masamune didn’t brush up against anything as he crawled out.  
  
Bracing his legs against the one story drop that was waiting for him on the other side was barely even worthy of note.

Sephiroth had snuck into Wutain ninja camps without alerting their sentries; he wasn’t going to be caught by a florist!

“You’re up bright and early.” Aerith greeted him, lazily leaning against rock wall outside of her home.

The Planet’s Greatest Tactical Genius: 0.

Local Florist: 1.

End Chapter.

AN: Just to be clear, yes _Dionaea_ _Muscipula_ is the fancy scientific classification term for Venus Flytrap.


	10. And there's more to this brave adventure, than you'd ever believe...

Sephiroth was struck mute, he could only repeatedly gesture at Aerith’s current location, then her second floor bedroom. Even if she’d heard Sephiroth sneaking out, there was no way she could have gotten from her room to her current location faster than he had!

Aerith lifted a hand to her cheek, but it would have taken more than that to keep Sephiroth from noticing she was giggling.  
  
“You’re adorable.” She cooed.

Sephiroth was not adorable.

“Your mother would not approve of this at all.” He couldn’t help but point out.  
  
She took a few steps forward and started to reach out for his hands, then abruptly pulled her arm back.

It seemed that she’d learned more about him than he had about her in their time together.

She settled back on her heels with an enigmatic smile.

"Wouldn't be the first time. Haven't you ever-"

She stopped, lips pressed together, then covered her change in direction with a sunny grin.

"It just wouldn't feel right for me to stay safe in bed while you're out here risking your life!"

“Midgar isn’t that dangerous to me.”   
  
“Then you don’t have to worry if I tag along!”

So, what exactly were Sephiroth’s options at the moment?  
  
Yes he could easily outrun her, but that might only result in Aerith spending the entire night wandering the streets looking for him. To use an appropriately botanical metaphor, where this florist was concerned; it was better to be the reed that that swayed with the storm than the oak that fell.

“All right, lead the way.” Sephiroth acquiesced.

“With pleasure.” Aerith strolled away from her house, humming some sort of jaunty tune.  
  
How was it possible for someone who wasn’t a SOLDIER to have this much energy?  
  
XXX XXX XXX  
  
Some people said that Midgar was the city that never slept; perhaps that was so, but it was certainly a different creature by night. The harsh glare of the sunlamps dimmed to a soft glow, the pounding cacophony of urban humanity faded behind the steady rumble of industrial machinery... if nothing else, Midgar by night was far gentler to Sephiroth's senses than its livelier counterpart.  
  
“It almost feels like this part of Midgar is cursed...” Aerith mused, her tone sounding dreamy and distant.

Sephiroth did another quick scan of everything in front of him for any signs of threat then risked a glance backward; they’d switched places shortly after leaving Sector Five.  
  
“What makes you say that?”

“Back when they were still building Midgar, there was an accident and the Plate fell. People had only just started moving in, so there weren’t many living there at the time, but...”   
  
“But even ‘weren’t many’ was still ‘too many’ in that situation.”  
  
Sephiroth could just barely catch Aerith nodding in agreement out of the corner of his eye.

He turned his gaze upwards, and noticed that instead of only motionless sun lamps there was actual non-artificial light shining down from above in a few places.

He could detect noticeable gaps in the Plate above them; surely such extensive damage couldn’t have been caused by last night’s bombing, no matter what Shinra had done to exacerbate Avalanche’s sabotage.

Aerith took up position beside him and pointed to those same gaps that he was already focused on.  
  
“ _That’s_ why they say this place is cursed. One accident was bad enough, but about two months back, _something_ happened here… no one is quite sure _what,_ though.

Shinra says it was the Turks fighting a monster that was going to destroy Midgar. Whatever happened, it caused still more damage to Sector Six’s Plate.”

Sephiroth found that explanation a mite hard to swallow.  
  
Whatever had happened, it was yet more proof that the Plate system was a myopic choice on Shinra’s part. The only reason it existed was so that the rich could live their entire lives without having to look at, let alone think about the less fortunate.

There simply wasn’t any logical reason that the city of Midgar couldn’t have been expanded horizontally; which left him with only the ‘illogical’ reason that the Plate system had been designed expressly for the purpose of making those who had to live underneath it suffer.

“I’m sorry I had to bring you here. If you want to go home...” Sephiroth offered her another chance to turn back.

“No, you’ve got to find the silver lining in every cloud. This place has suffered a lot, but its also the only place in Lower Midgar where you can see the sky.” Aerith reflected as she tilted her neck still further upwards, as if she could take in the entire sky through a few small gaps in the Plate.  
  
“Mind your footing.” Sephiroth warned her as he continued moving forward.

“It’s funny, I’m still a little scared of the sky… but only during the day. At night, it is just so beautiful.” Sephiroth picked up the sound of her footsteps following his own.

He risked another quick glance upwards; minimal cloud cover, starlight, crescent moon. Good balance between navigation and concealment needs, but there was nothing particularly beautiful about it.  
  
A few moments later, he crested a hill and looked out at a walled area that surely would have qualified as a town utno itself anywhere other than Midgar.  
  
“Wall Market...”

There was no place in Lower Midgar he was more familiar with, due to how many times he’d had to retrieve SOLDIERs who were overstaying their leave here.

“Would you be interested in getting to back to Sector Seven without going through it?”

“Yes.”

“Good; I know a shortcut! One that _tragically_ doesn’t go through Wall Market.” Aerith promised with a smug smile.  
  
Sephiroth noticed a miniscule twitch in her arm before the limb went completely still.  
  
A few moments later she opted for crooking a finger at him instead.

This woman may not have the sense to be intimidated by him... but Sephiroth had to admit there was something novel and refreshing about having his personal space respected out of consideration, rather than fear.

“I take it said secret passageway involves this run down tunnel?”  
  
“It sure does.”  
  
“When was the last time you used it?”  
  
“When I was a kid….”

This could _only_ end well.

XXX XXX XXX  
  
“Oh great, someone’s pulled up the ladder,” Aerith groaned.  
  
It seemed that uncooperative architecture, of all things, was the weak point in Aerith's otherwise unshakably sanguine disposition.

It didn’t last long of course, her green eyes soon fixated on a nearby gigantic mechanical arm.

“I wonder if we can...” She began.

Sephiroth walked over, effortlessly leapt twenty feet into the air, landed by the raised ladder, and sent it sliding down to Aerith with a firm kick.  
  
“Or we could do that.” She admitted before starting to climb.

Once she’d finished, Aerith faced Sephiroth and raised both of her arms into the air as if she was surrendering.

He tilted his head to the side to indicate his confusion.  
  
“Hm? All right, good enough, let’s keep on trucking.” She pressed on further into the tunnel, leaving yet another minor mystery in her wake.

XXX XXX XXX  
  
“I think it’s a dead end...” Aerith pointed out as directly in front of them was a huge shipping container, with an even huger piles of debris having built up to either side of it.  
  
Sephiroth was willing to agree that there didn’t seem to be an obvious way around the container for his companion, which simply meant it was time to make a way through it.

He let loose with a precise blast of ice magic, freezing one section of the container, then slammed his shoulder into it.  
  
Ice shattered inward and he repeated the process on the far wall, leaving a man-sized hole punched through the former obstruction

"Well, I feel better about getting the cold shoulder knowing it's not just me…" Aerith chuckled then did that strange thing with her hands again.  
  
Since it had worked last time he tilted his head to the side, but refrained from further action.

Once again after about five seconds she abandoned whatever bizarre ritual she was trying to get him to take part in.  
  
Instead, she turned her eyes towards another ladder that someone had seen fit to yank up so that it couldn’t be climbed.

“Aww no, look. Why is it always gotta be so tough? Lucky for me you’ll make this easier.” Aerith predicted.  
  
She was right. Sephiroth approached the ladder, jumped to the platform above it and kicked it down for her.

  
XXX XXX XXX  
  
They had to be nearly out of these tunnels, Sephiroth was sure of it. He pushed open a large door and   
his eyes instantly focused on a dull, flickering glow on an otherwise bare patch of ground.

It was the smoldering remains of a small pile of branches.

He raced over to it to see if he could learn anything from closer observation.  
  
“This fire was started recently, whomever made it is nearby...”  
  
“You can tell that just by looking at a pile of burning sticks?”  
  
“That, and the sound of their footsteps.”  
  
"The what?"

A moment later three men burst into the room.

“Lookie here boys, caught us some burglars.” One of them chortled.  
  
Sephiroth just stared in perplexion.

Either Shinra or the various black market chemists in Wall Market must be turning out some impressively powerful narcotics these days. He certainly couldn’t think of any other reason why this trio didn’t take single good look at him, then run screaming for the hills.

“Coming into our homes and stealing our shit, doin’ crimes!” The most lanky of the three announced in what he probably thought was a menacing tone.

“I’d say we’re owed ‘compensatory damages’!” Sneered the first man who was probably the trio’s leader.  
  
“Yeah! Complementary, uh composite, uh, I don’t get it...” Mumbled the squat third member.

“How stupid can you be? It’s crazy simple! Compensatory damages is like uh….” The leader began.

“Compensatory damages are a sum of money awarded in a civil action by a court to indemnify a person for the particular loss, detriment, or injury suffered as a result of the unlawful conduct of another.

They provide a plaintiff with the monetary amount necessary to replace what was lost, and nothing more.” Sephiroth explained, since otherwise he’d likely have to stand around all day watching the not especially bright leader explain the matter to his two even more idiotic underlings.“Yeah, what he said!” The leader instantly agreed, at least able to recognize actual intelligence when it stood right in front of him.

“We’re just passing through, what do you want?” Aerith made the commendable, but most likely futile gesture of trying to negotiate with the trio.

“Nothing but our due recompense, that’s all!” The leader chortled.

“Wait… what? Do wreck-em-pants?” The short one abruptly murdered the phrase.

“No shit-for-brains, due recompense, it’s like… uh...” The leader tried and failed to explain.

Realizing that they'd come to a vocabulary related impasse once again, the bandits’ six eyes turned in Sephiroth’s direction. They were in theory about to rob him, but first, they clearly hoped he’d clarify another legal matter.

“Due recompense is...” Sephiroth began.

Then in the blink of an eye he was standing behind the trio.

“Me getting the last sixty seconds of my life back, Blizzaga.”

Before he’d even finished his final word’s third syllable, all three bandits were flash frozen, and dropped softly to the ground a few moments later.  
  
“Did you have to do that?” Aerith asked as she thumbed the switch to make her collapsible staff retract back down to the size of a baton.

Sephiroth wondered why she sounded so upset, until he realized that she’d probably never seen ice magic wielded by someone with his expertise before.

“I didn’t kill them, if that’s what you’re worried about. A snap freeze like that induces something like hibernation; barring any pre-existing conditions, they'll thaw out in a few hours barely the worse for wear. I know it may look harsh, but if you have other suggestions for how I could keep our foes properly restrained, I’m willing to hear them.”  
  
“Have you ever considered using zip ties?” Aerith all-but-instantly countered, skirting uneasily around the statues.  
  
“I had not.”

Then he pondered the matter for another moment.  
  
“Why did _you_ think of using them?” He had not expected a florist to be more well versed in the art of captive restraint than a general.

“TURKs is one of my mom’s favorite shows.”.

“I promise I’ll keep your zip tie suggestion in mind. For now we need to keep moving.”

XXX XXX XXX

It turned out that there was a _third_ ladder that had to be dealt with, but another jump from Sephiroth soon resolved that issue.  
  
Once Aerith managed to climb the ladder he’d lowered, a wide smile filled her face.

“Sephiroth, up top!” She called out, raising a single hand.  
  
Now he finally understood what she wanted from him.

He wasn’t going to give it to her, but he understood.

“You can put your hand down.”

Her smile faltered.

"I thought, maybe if it was on _your_ terms..."

The gesture was simple. Straightforward... but the human body was so _fragile_... No. Out of the question. _If_ he were to experiment with impact gestures, he certainly wouldn't start with the unenhanced.

“I don’t do…. touch.”

Aerith lowered her arm, her face falling into a wistful echo of her earlier smile.

"I guess not..." she trailed off, then rallied. "So, back in SOLDIER, how did you celebrate with your squadmates when you accomplished something important?”

The woman was indefatigable. Forget needing an entire battalion of Gainsboroughs; give her some SOLDIER treatments and she would have blazed a path to First Class that would have made Genesis turn green with envy.

“I crawled back to my tent and finally got some sleep. Sleep was something we all had a deep and passionate respect for.”

“Really? You didn't even have celebratory feasts together?”

“We were in the middle of a war. Food options were quite limited, and even what the commissary could provide had been cooked by men of dubious skill. Have you ever bitten into sirloin steak and discovered that someone found a way to make it taste like a dog’s tongue?

That said, thank you for reminding me if I ever see that Private again I need to....” Sephiroth began.

Halfway through his reminiscence he noticed the worried look Aerith was giving him.

"Force him to... eat... some of his own cooking," Sephiroth concluded lamely.

That seemed to assuage her concern; she clearly had no idea how much worse a fate that was than any physical retribution.

XXX XXX XXX  
  
The two of them slowly emerged from the tunnel and into the open air once more. This time however there were no nearby gaps in the Plate through which the night sky could be seen.  
  
“We made it...” Aerith panted slightly, the trip understandably having taken more out of her than from Sephiroth.

Strangely enough, at the very edge of Sector Six was some kind of playground.

“Hm. Tawdry as it is now, you could forget that Sector Six was originally planned as the entertainment hub for all of Midgar...”   
  
“Yeah... when the rough types started to take over, Shinra convinced everyone that they could solve everything by building a wall.”   
  
“I remember. They sent Don Corneo an invoice; last I heard, he had it framed and put it up behind his desk.”

A moment later, Aerith clambered up a bizarre cat-bear-frog structure and perched at the top of the slide protruding from its mouth.  
  
“What was it like, being a First Class SOLDIER?” She called down to him.  
  
“Frantic and mind-numbing by turns. Exhausting, on the aggregate.”

Aerith seemed to be quite amused by the fact that she could now look down on Sephiroth while they talked.

“It’s funny, you’re so different from my first boyfriend in every way… well except one.” Aerith reflected wistfully.

“All we have in common is being SOLDIERs?”  
  
She giggled at his question, for some reason.  
  
“No! I mean, I was wrong, there are _two_ ways you’re the same. Yes, you were both First Class SOLDIERs, but there was something else; the gentleness. With him, well it was like he never had a single nasty thought in his entire life.”   
  
“That doesn’t sound like me at all.”

“With you, it’s like I can see each and every single nasty thought you have, and then how the moment it pops up, you smash it right back down with a huge hammer. He made it seem effortless, but I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who tries as hard to be a good person as you do. That has to count for something...”

Sephiroth silently agreed with her; he spent a lot of time hoping that it counted for something. That said, her description of a First Class soldier who never had a nasty thought in his life, it certainly sounded like Zack...

“Your first boyfriend; what was his name? I think I might have served with him...” If she'd dated Zack, he'd have wanted her to have closure.  
  
She turned away with shocking abruptness.

“It doesn’t matter anymore. I mean, I was sixteen, he was seventeen, we were really just teenagers fooling around.” She insisted.

"Hm." On one hand, he was skeptical. On the other, if she was looking to gloss over that chunk of history, he saw little merit in pressing her on the matter; let it stay between her and Probably Zack.  
  
“Part of growing up is outgrowing childish things...” Aerith sighed, before standing up and walking down the slide.

“Anyway, I’m sorry for slowing you down, the gate to Sector Seven should be straight ahead. If we hurry a little I might even be able to make it back home before my mom wakes up.” She suggested, in the warm yet also slightly flippant tone he’d come to expect from her.

Sephiroth turned his eyes towards the gates in question, they were so huge even he probably couldn’t leap them in a single bound. Luckily between his raw strength and the time worn nature of the obstruction in question handholds wouldn’t be hard to come by.

Before he could get started, the gate began to swing open to allow a chocobo-pulled carriage through.  
  
“You know, just once in my life, I wish that I could get a chance to wear a dress as pretty as that.” Aerith sighed dreamily.

His attention drawn by her words, Sephiroth flicked a glance at the carriage's occupant.

Motif: black and hot pink, deliberately contrasted. Dark hair, bright pink headband. Flower, artificial, also vividly pink.

Black yukata, pink lining. Pink lipstick and eyeshadow.

He was about to dismiss the matter with a mental shrug when the figurative wheel finished turning and several details clicked into place. Long dark hair was hardly unique, but it was only the first relevant data point. The fabric was taut at her shoulders, the cut of the garment clearly intended for a slighter frame. Pink eyeshadow on pale skin distracted from the faint glow visible through tinted contacts.

He took a second look. Facial structure, complexion under the cosmetics, physique, even posture, all matched.

Tifa.

"She's lovely, but..." Aerith, not privy to his revelation, was still speaking. "I still feel bad for her. All dressed up, in one of those carriages? Only one place she could be headed..."

You hear stories about Corneo's girls, you know?"

Of course, Aerith hadn’t seen Tifa kill a man with her bare hands, or hold her own against the Airbuster. What chance did a crime boss and his pet thugs have against her?  
  
Still... better safe than sorry, if Avalanche had come up with some kind of plot targeting Don Corneo since he’d lost touch with them, Kadaj should be able to fill him in.

Shinra had been kind enough to install a payphone at the edge of the playground, and the Seventh Heaven's phone number had been listed alongside its address. He didn't have the change necessary to place a call, but that was a surmountable problem.  
  
At the end of the day, phones were just another machine that did whatever the electronic signals going on inside them told them to do. He hadn’t done this in a long time, but in theory, all he had to do was run the right voltage through the right parts of the phone and it would forget all about demanding payment…

“Please stand at least ten feet back, there’s a small chance this phone may explode.” He quickly warned Aerith as he started to summon up sparks of energy between the fingers of his right hand.  
  
She of course decided to do the exact opposite.  
  
Before Sephiroth had a chance to start bending the phone’s electronic brain to his whims, Aerith walked over and slid a coin into the slot.

There was a happy dial tone a few moments later.  
  
“Or we could do that.” He sighed, then dialed.  
  
All he got for his effort was a recorded message from Tifa’s Customer Service Voice announcing that Seventh Heaven was closed for the night and what their hours of operation were.  
  
No Kadaj, no Barret, not even Biggs, Wedge, Jessie or Marlene. What was going on?  
  
“You’re worried about that girl.” It wasn’t a question.  
  
“Her name is Tifa Lockhart, she’s a work acquaintance who I’ve run up a large tab with.”

“Then what are you standing around at a phone waiting for, lets go help her!”  
  
“I was trying to gather information so that I didn’t race into a situation with no idea what was going on.”  
  
“Faint hearts never won fair ladies, we should start thinking less about reconnaissance and more about rescues!”  
  
Sephiroth couldn’t help but notice that he’d never actually asked for Aerith to get involved in this particular matter.  
  
“We’re going to do reconnaissance first...”  
  
“And there’s no better place to do it than here in Sector Six! We should head for Wall Market while the trail is still fresh!” Aerith interrupted him.  
  
Sephiroth would have preferred to have personally inspected Seventh Heaven in case Avalanche had left any notes behind to inform him of their plans, but like so many other times tonight, what he preferred gave way before Gale Storm Gainsborough.

End Chapter

AN: The “Private” that Sephiroth is referring to in his discussion with Aerith is Giles from “This Army Life” by Nicolle on fanfiction.net, a wonderful piece of crack that you should consider looking into in your free time.  
  
Also “yukata” is the best word that I or my editor could find to describe the style of outfit Tifa wears in this section (if you choose “exotic” as the dress style at least) but if anyone has feedback on the matter please let me know and I’ll make a revision.


	11. Say amen, there he goes again! Sweet and undefeated, and an awesome ten for ten! Folks lined up, just to watch him flex. And this perfect package packed a pair of pretty pecs.

Wall Market was everything wrong with Midgar packed into one small sector, chiefly the belief that if a place was brightly lit, clean, and advertised aggressively then nothing too untoward could be going on.

The search for information on Tifa lead them past a truly impressive array of vices: brothels, black markets, illicit theaters, gambling parlors, strip shows, dive bars, oxygen bars, strip bars, opium dens, leather shops, and a single incongruous pet store.

Unperturbed by the proffered proliferation of prurient pursuits, they followed the main thoroughfare to the ostentatiously gilded facade of Corneo's mansion.

The building itself was actually marginally more tasteful than most of Wall Market; it lacked a gigantic neon sign declaring it “Don Corneo’s Mansion” or more likely, “D-O-N C-O-R-N-E-O-’-S M-A-N-S-I-O-N.”

Surprisingly, there were only three guards outside. Given that Don Corneo had been running Wall Market for over a decade with minimal opposition, overconfidence had clearly set in.

Two of them seemed to be more or less run of the mill street toughs, but their leader had short cut silver hair and amber colored eyes.

Since he didn’t instantly fall to his feet and start asking how he could help; Sephiroth doubted that he was another errant ‘sibling'.

“Not so fast, buddy. Back it up. Got no need for pretty boys here.” He insisted as Sephiroth approached.

“Specially not this one, Leslie, would make the girl’s jealous.” One of the goons snickered.  
  
Yet more proof that his years as the unchallenged ruler of Wall Market had gone to Don Corneo’s head, or at least those of his minions. That, or the reports of his demise had left them with the conclusion that he must be some manner of imposter.

That was the problem with being a big fish in a tiny pond, the larger world inevitably intruded.

It would be impossibly easy for him to deal with these three, literally kick down the doors, and storm in to find Tifa. He’d probably even be able to pull it off without having to kill anyone.

On the other hand, while he’d been wasting his time in the Lifestream, Tifa had spent the last five years preparing for a war against Shinra. If she’d wound up in Don Corneo’s clutches it was probably because she wanted to be there.

Which in turn meant that it’d be better for him to aid her scheme rather than just resorting to the most brutal and straightforward solution possible.  
  
“How ‘bout me, then? Can I go inside?” Aerith eagerly pipped up.  
  
Sephiroth found himself vaguely amused seeing her irrepressible nature aimed at someone else, especially since they had it coming.

“Maybe, but you're gonna wish you didn't.” Leslie promised.

“You know, she’s kinda cute, homely, but cute.” One ruffian reflected.

“Excuse you?” Aerith hissed, putting Sephiroth in mind of an affronted cat.

“Seriously, she’s not half bad! With a little work I bet she’d clean up real nice.” The other agreed.

“Sephiroth... requesting permission to kill.” Aerith snarled, a strangely predatory tone to her words.  
  
“Denied.” Sephiroth was fairly certain that the florist was teasing him in some fashion, but he wasn’t about to risk someone’s life to find out; even if said “someone” was one of Don Corneo’s goons.

“If you're really _**that**_ determined to present yourself to Don Corneo, then you're gonna need to get official approval. Before you ask, you can only get permission from a member of the ‘Trio’ who Don Corneo puts his personal trust in. First, there's Chocobo Sam, then the Honeybee Inn's Andrea Rhodea and last but not least, Madam M over at the massage parlor. Just know that getting their approval is gonna take more than bright eyes and a pleading smile.”

“Hmm, duly noted. Thanks for the info. We'll be back soon.” Aerith chirped, giving Leslie the best view possible of her bright eyes, and satisfied smile.

XXX XXX XXX

Unsurprisingly, Chocobo Sam proved to be of little help.

When Sephiroth had _taken umbrage_ at him “flipping” them for the chance at Aerith getting his personal approval... and then using a two headed coin... Sam had agreed to clarify the matter still further.

Don Corneo only let each member of the Trio recommend one girl a night, and since Sam had already put forward Tifa there was nothing he could possibly do to help them.  
  
After that failure they’d gone to try and meet with Andrea Rhodea, only to be stonewalled by the Honey Bee Inn’s staff. In the process Sephiroth had seen and smelled things that he could never unsee or unsmell.  
  
Which in turn meant that the two only had one chance left and headed to Madam M’s Massages.

Despite his initial trepidation, Sephiroth found nothing immediately offensive or unsettling upon entering the establishment; a statement he would have considered damning with faint praise, perhaps, but after the Honey Bee Inn...

The establishment was decorated in a broadly Wutain aesthetic, but the mishmash of regional styles left Sephiroth with the impression that the design philosophy hadn't gotten much past 'exotic equals cultured.'

“Welcome, welcome, just the two of you?” The woman who greeted them from behind the counter spoke with impressive nonchalance, as if she’d frequently had visitors even stranger than Aerith and Sephiroth.

The kimono she wore hung low off one shoulder, showing that she'd foregone the majority of the traditional underlayers for the garment.

“Step right up. Now then, what manner of massage do you desire?” The woman crooned out to them.

Her tone was inviting, but Sephiroth wondered how genuine her enthusiasm was.

“You’re Madam M, right?” Aerith eagerly approached the counter getting ready to plead her case yet again.

“That I am. Purveyor of the most marvelous massages in all of Midgar.” She boasted while cooling herself with an elaborate Wutain fan.

“My name is Aerith Gainsborough and I was hoping that maybe you could get me an audition with Don Cor...” Was as far as she got.  
  
The fan snapped shut and was instantly pointed at her throat like a dagger.

“Oh for the love of, say another word and I'll shove this fan right down your throat!”

It was truly impressive how quickly Madam M had abandoned her distinguished mannerisms and untraceable accent for traditional Lower Midgar brusqueness.  
  
“You certainly will not.” Sephiroth's tone was matter-of-fact, if chilly, and Madame M rounded on him with a venomous smile.

“Hmm, you look like a man of some years and refinement, so I’m surprised you didn’t do a better job explaining to this girl what she can expect out of life. This is a massage parlor, a respectable establishment. People give me gil, and I provided them with a service. If they don’t have the coin, I show, them, THE DOOR!”  
  
It seemed the Trio’s final member could have given Kadaj lessons on being mercurial.

Sephiroth was about to warn Aerith that this was hopeless when to his surprise she began to extract a great many gil coins from her dress pockets and place them on Madam M’s desk.

It was hardly a small fortune, not even a minute fortune, but it was more hard currency than Sephiroth would have expected her to have on hand.  
  
“Do you think this would be enough to buy a service from you?” She pleaded with the masseuse.

Madam M’s eyes lit up with delight. “Before we can determine what manner of massage is required I’ll need to do some preliminary investigations. Hand, give it to me!” Just like that, the ethereally untraceable accent returned, despite her blunt word choice.  
  
To Sephiroth’s amazement, even as the masseuse reached to out towards his right hand, Aerith abruptly interposed herself between the two of them, pushing Sephiroth back and out of the masseuse’s reach.

“My bodyguard is very protective of his hands; he’d never be able to get any work done without them. Would you shout at a musician to just whip out their most prized instrument like that? If you want your customers to be able to relax and have a good time, you need to work harder on putting them at ease.”

Sephiroth felt deep pang of appreciation for the mysterious florist; she wasn’t just learning his habits to avoid his ire, she was also making sure other people had to respect his boundaries. The only other person who’d ever done that for him was Zack...  
  
“Since this is very important to both of us, do you think…?” Aerith began to gently edge into the subject.

“I can do it.” Sephiroth sighed, and presented his left hand to Madam M.

She ran her hands across his gloved digits in a way that he found unwelcomely intense.

“Ah yes, just as I expected, the strong firm hand of a fighter. More than just that though, your fingers possess an elegance and grace I have rarely felt the equal of. Most of all though, the tension! The sheer unresolved, unbearable tension! Frankly I couldn’t imagine a man more in need of me or who I would have greater pleasure servicing.” Madam M cooed.

Sephiroth said nothing, he was entirely focused on not yanking his hand away from her.

“Of course, before we can make any real progress we’ll have to get these gloves out of the way.”  
  
Sephiroth could feel his eyes widening with the mixture of shock, surprise, and horror he far more frequently inspired in others.

This woman wanted him to take off his gloves and then do intimate things to his hands?

On top of that, she expected _him_ to pay _her_ for the experience?  
  
“Wait, you’re good with giving massages to women also, right? Because I’ve done a lot of gardening work over the last few years, I’ve probably built up horrible calluses that only someone of your skill could handle!” Aerith abruptly interjected.

She could have jumped on a live artillery shell and not left Sephiroth feeling as indebted to her.

Madam M reluctantly let go of Sephiroth’s hand and began to inspect Aerith’s.  
  
“True, you aren’t quite the delicate flower I first took you for. The money is good either way, I suppose. The only question is exactly what manner of massage are you interested in?”   
  
XXX XXX XXX  
  
In order to try and curry as much favor as possible Aerith had ordered the most expensive massage she’d been able to afford.  
  
Sephiroth just sat quietly in the lobby while Madam M got to work.

Eventually they returned, the Madam looking quite pleased with herself, and Aerith’s green eyes seeming strangely unfocused and glassy.

“Another satisfied customer.” Madam M boasted proudly, and the florist raised no objections. “Are there any other ways I might be of service?”

Sephiroth turned his gaze once more in Aerith’s direction, figuring that she would be best suited to explain this scheme. Alas, at the moment she seemed to be more interested in gazing dazedly at her hands, leaving the task to him.  
  
“Like she tried to tell you before, my companion is interested in being among the women considered for Don Corneo’s newest bride. We’d been told that as a member of his Trio you could make it happen.”  
  
Madam M took another long moment to size up Aerith before commenting.

“She has potential, though I don’t know why she’d want to waste it on that scumbag. That said, I could never allow a candidate I put forward to present herself in such an unremarkable dress.”

“Dress...ssss...sss...” Aerith might have been trying to raise an object but she seemed to promptly get distracted by the “amusing” prospect of slurring the word in question.

“How much money was left over after the massage?” Sephiroth suggested, hoping it would be able to cover the expense.

Madam M first response was a mirthlessly laugh.  
  
“Not enough, not even close. The few thousand gil she has could barely buy a designer handkerchief let alone a dress.

Luckily, I know how you can cover the cost. Wall Market’s famous ‘Don Corneo Cup’ tournament is starting in just under an hour, and the top prize is... considerable. It’d be a crime for it to take place without _you_ showing what you’re capable of. So, I’ll handle your entry fee and the red tape, then when you win, the prize money will cover the costs of turning this Plain Jane into in a drop-dead gorgeous beauty.”   
  
“Are fights to the death?” The entire point of this circuitous scheme was to prevent Sephiroth from having to kill anyone after all.

“It’s not unheard of for competitors to die, but most fight end in surrender.” She reassured him.  
  
The fact that Madam M hadn’t bothered to name exactly how much Aerith’s new dress would cost or how large a prize was awarded to the Don Corneo Cup’s winner made Sephiroth suspect she was going to make quite a tidy profit off of the exchange. He didn’t have time to haggle though, not when he needed to run an important errand before the tournament started.

“Aerith, where did you get that much gil from?” He couldn’t help but ask as he gently took the still-suggestible florist by the hand.  
  
“They’re me and my mom’s savings. I figured we’d need them more than her, since now she’s got that 15,000 gil voucher from you scaring Reno’s pants off...” Aerith answered with even less hesitation than normal.

“Would you mind I borrowed some of it?” Sephiroth felt like he was most certainly taking advantage of Aerith given her current condition, but it was for the greater good.

“How could I say no to my Silver Knight?” Aerith giggled as she all but collapsed against his chest.  
  
Sephiroth hoped she recovered soon.

XXX XXX XXX  
  
“I’ll take these.” Sephiroth declared as he laid the plastic package down in front of the clerk.

The clerk, like most occupants of Wall Market, had long ago learned how to to do their job without even contemplating the possibility of asking questions; he simply took the package and scanned it.

“One pack of 1,000 zip ties. That’ll be 120 gil.”

“I’ve created a monster.” A much recovered Aerith moaned.

Sephiroth dropped the requisite coins on the counter before turning back to his companion.  
  
“This was _your_ idea; why are you upset?” He pointed out, his tone equal parts aggrieved and confused.

Aerith sighed _very_ heavily.

“I was making a joke. I’m actually glad for the amount of restraint you’re showing.” She clarified.

All signs of obvious distress slowly began to drain from her face, so Sephiroth decided she was indeed being serious this time.  
  
“I hate to eavesdrop, but if restraint is what you’re interested there’s a place just down the street that...” The clerk began.  
  
“Thank you, but we’ll be going!” Sephiroth cut him off, grabbing his bag of zip ties, and dragging Aerith out of the store before she had a chance to gainsay him.  
  
XXX XXX XXX

“Why are their video cameras in here? Does Don Corneo really think someone is going to try and sneak in through this long straight tunnel that has exactly zero places to hide?” Aerith scoffed pointing at one of the devices in question.  
  
“Given how much this place loves to advertise, it is probably here to let the audience see who they can expect to be competing ahead of time.” Sephiroth had picked up at least a passing knowledge of event planning from how many times Shinra had trotted him out in front of one crowd or another.  
  
What he hadn’t expected was that the tunnel would be lined with speakers so that they could hear exactly what the crowd milling about in the lobby had to say about his arrival.

“Is that?”  
  
“It might just be a look-alike they hired to boost ticket sails.”  
  
“What is _he_ doing here?”  
  
“Pinch me, I think I’m dreaming.”  
  
“Oh my Planet, I can’t believe we’ve already got tickets for this!”  
  
“I heard Don Corneo was starting to get friendly with Shinra, but friendly enough that they’d do this?”

“I thought Sam’s Champions had it in the bag but...”  
  
“We’re in for a hell of a show tonight...”  
  
“Delete… delete… delete… got to make more room on my PHS so I can record every second… delete….”

Sephiroth really could have done without the voices of at least two dozen different people having three dozen different discussions bouncing around the tunnel with no place to go but into his ears; his only solace was being in an entirely different room they **had** to keep their distance.

At the end of the tunnel they found an official looking man in a white suit waiting for them.

“Madam M’s champion for the night has arrived.” Sephiroth introduced himself.

“Make that Madam M’s _champions_ for the night.” Aerith abruptly cut in.

A part of Sephiroth wondered why he was even surprised.

“Don’t worry about it, two member teams are the norm anyway. Since you’re running late we won’t waste time asking about minor details details like next of kin. Right now, just give me your names and occupations so I can pass them along to the announcer.” The man gestured toward the elevator behind him whose doors had just opened.

“Everyone already knows who I am.”  
  
“Aerith Gainsborough, local florist.”

XXX XXX XXX

The elevator’s doors closed, and just like that they were alone together once again.

“Since you insist on doing this, I’ll continue trying my best to keep you alive.”

“You worry too much. I'm not some princess that needs to be coddled.” Aerith huffed.  
  
“What can you do to help me in a fight?” He raised the question in the most dispassionate tone possible to show that he wasn’t trying to belittle or insult her.

“I can shoot blasts of magic from my staff.” Aerith noted with a confident smile.

“What?” Sephiroth spluttered, he’d been expecting a lot of possible answers, but that wasn’t one of them.

“Yeah. It’s not about the staff being magic either. I can do it with any staff I hold.” The “ordinary florist” insisted.

There were several things “wrong” about that statement, or at least “in direct conflict with how Sephiroth believed to the world to work”, but now was not the time to bicker over them.  
  
“I can work with that, does your staff or bangles have materia slots?”   
  
“Three in my staff, two linked one solo, and a two linked slots in my bangles. Why do you ask? I don’t think they’re likely to give us time to go on another shopping trip before our matches start.”

Sephiroth unsheathed Masamune and began to gently pry a few stones free from just above its grip, then started to do the same thing with his own gold armlet.

He gently passed her two glowing stones, one green, the other blue.  
  
“Ice, and all.”

Then he repeated the process with another pair of mismatched stones.  
  
“Earth and all.”  
  
Finally a single green orb.

“Restore, this one is used for curative magic in case you do get hurt. You won’t need to link an ‘all’ to it, because I can take care of healing myself.” Sephiroth explained, leaving unsaid that he wasn’t especially likely to get hurt badly enough to need magical healing.

“All five of them are mastered, so you don’t need to worry about forging a proper bond with them to unlock their full potential; I’ve already got them well trained.”

“So... you’ve got a collection of pet rocks?”

"Hm. Let me give you a crash course in materia usage. To start with, do you know what materia allow you to do?”

“They let you cast magical spells that summon various elements?”  
  
Sephiroth gave a short shake of his head. "Not exactly, but that's a common misconception, especially in civilian circles. A lightning materia could stun or electrocute a person, or even induce a magnetic field, but if you tried to charge a capacitor with one, the charge would only last as long as your concentration.  
  
What materia actually do is allow you to rewrite reality, imposing your will on it through things that might look like natural events, but ultimately aren’t. A fire materia doesn't need fuel, and an earth materia can manifest stone out of a steel floor; don’t allow your knowledge of the natural world to get in the way of what your willpower wants to achieve.”

“Wait, is that’s why if you just froze someone in a real block of ice they’d probably either suffocate or die from hypothermia, but when you use magic they survive?” Aerith realized after taking a moment to ponder his words.

“Correct. Since you’re just starting, out consider verbalizing whatever spells you cast." He held up a hand to forestall the inevitable question. "It will warn your opponent what you're casting, yes, but language shapes thought; speaking it aloud makes it easier to ensure the spell actually goes off in the chaos of real combat conditions."

It was strangely gratifying to have his newest ‘cadet’ catching on so quickly.  
  
Aerith looked down at the five glistening gems in the palm of her hand.  
  
“Won’t me having these limit what sort of magic you can do? Maybe you should keep the healing one...”

She'd passed Materia 101 with flying colors. Time for the advanced class.

“Materia are a crystalline form of mako, so each and every single materia represents a tiny fraction of the Lifestream. That means the knowledge and wisdom of those who came before us, the Ancients, is held within every materia. Anyone with this knowledge and sufficient willpower can use the power of the Planet. That interaction between the borrowed knowledge and the Planet, is the basis of... magic… for lack of a more technical term.

If that was a little confusing, don’t worry. All that you really need to understand is that materia are only necessary for people who doesn’t have the knowledge of the Ancients.” As Sephiroth spoke, he made a few more quick gestures and, despite the fact that Aerith was holding his ice materia, summoned up a small flurry of snowflakes.

“And I do.”   
  
“Are you an Ancient?” Aerith gasped.

Sephiroth would have better luck spotting a dove in the middle of a blizzard than he would piercing through the sudden overflow of emotions on Aerith’s face; there were too many for him even name them all, let alone parse their meaning.  
  
“No! _No_. No, I’m very much not an Ancient. The Ancients gained their knowledge from true communion with the planet. All my knowledge is… stolen.” Sephiroth admitted, desperately hoping that she wouldn’t insist on discussing the mater further, or even worse continue to try convincing him that surely he must be an Ancient.  
  
Luckily, any attempt she might have made at continuing the conversation was was interrupted by the elevator doors opening up.  
  
Aerith quickly inserted Sephiroth’s materias into her staff and bangles, then followed him out into a metal hallway.

“General Sephiroth, over here!” Another of the tournament’s staff called out, gesturing towards a pair of huge doors that were already sliding open.  
  
Aerith’s staff was still extended from the process of adding materia, but Sephiroth had returned his blade to its sheath. He’d always found it... disrespectful to Masamune to keep it drawn without a clear purpose in mind.

The two of them walked into a large open area, and Sephiroth had to admit he was at least mildly impressed, this was no fly-by-night underground fight club; a lot of time and effort had been put into it.

There were already two men standing in the middle of the arena, but judging from their lack of weapons or armor they probably weren’t Sephiroth and Aerith’s opponents.

“Ladies, Gentlemen,”

“In the city that never sleeps!”

“In the paradise of debauchery and sin, of pain and pleasure!”

“Where your every desire can be indulged for the right price, Wall Market!”

“To you esteemed connoisseurs of chaos and bloodshed, we bid you the warmest of welcomes!”

“Are you sitting comfortably?”  
  
“Well you shouldn’t be!”   
  
“That’s right, you might have paid for your entire seat...”  
  
“But for these fights YOU’LL ONLY NEED THE EDGE!”

“You all know that Don Corneo spares no expense to bring the greatest fighters from the world over to his colosseum...”  
  
“But even compared to such hallowed competitors who have come before, this, will, be, spectacular!”

“Because for our next match, in the red corner we have two fighters..”  
  
“One, a complete unknown. The other, still a household name, fresh from a five year long retirement!”  
  
“That’s right, he’s back, just for this one night, in this, one, place!”

"The SOLDIER,”

“To whom there are none bolder!”

“The First Class,”

“Who will kick your ass!”  
  
“The General,”

“Who……. JUST PUT YOUR HANDS YOUR HANDS TOGETHER FOR SEPH-IR-OTH!"

"And a local florist."

“You know, it’s really irritating how you get all the good patter.”

“Sup with the pole!? Gonna do a little dance for us, baby girl?” One of the spectators called out.

“I was wrong, THAT’S _really_ irritating.” Aerith growled.

“Just remember, they’ll probably reduce our prize money if we intentionally harm the audience.”

“Their opponent, one of Wall Market's own, a renowned master of beasts!”

“Will his pets make a meal of our two challenges before our very eyes?”  
  
“Or will the beasts be beaten like so many foes before?”

“They've already been given their appetizer, but their hunger for flesh and fear is unquenchable, the demon dogs of hell, the Sanguine Stalkers!”  
  
Doors on the other side of the arena slowly swung open.

A man with no weapons or armor came running through them like his life depended on it.

A moment later the cause of his fear became all too obvious when a pair of red and black skinned canines came chasing after him.

“No, please!” The man cried out in horror.  
  
He risked a glance backward to see how close his pursuers were, which promptly proved to be his undoing, as he tripped over a divot left in the floor by one of the previous rounds of combat.

“Feast.” Announced the dogs’ master, a one eyed man with dark skin.

In an instant the dogs were on the fallen man. His screams of terror hurt Sephiroth’s ears, but not as much as the high pitched it whistle that followed them. When the dogs still didn’t let up the piercing whistle sounded again, and Sephiroth found himself reexamining his position on lethal force.

The dogs drew back from the fallen man leaving him with shredded clothing, but no injuries serious enough to prevent him from regaining his feet and once more fleeing for his life.

“You brought animals?” Aerith seemed to be less than impressed with their foe’s choice of companions.

“First timers, huh? There's no rule that says your teammate gotta be human.” The Beastmaster scoffed as he drew forth a wicked looking dagger.

“Who will prevail in this brutal contest between man and beast!? This could be over in an instant, so don't even blink! Without further ado, the match… begins now!” The announcer concluded, and then the section of the floor they were standing on suddenly began to sink downwards, taking them out of the arena.

“I’ll handle him, you just keep his pets busy.” Sephiroth promised, and he was halfway across the arena before Aerith had a chance to respond.

XXX XXX XXX

That was how Aerith Gainsborough, florist, found herself in a fight with a pair of dogs who looked like they’d been kicked out of Shinra’s K9 program for being too bloodthirsty

Of course, since she and Sephiroth had been rushed into the tournament so quickly, no one had bothered to explain some of the finer points on what was and wasn’t legal. The Beastmaster’s use of attack dogs was one example; her innate “magic” was another.

Was it illegal for her to have spent most of the announcers’ opening patter charging up a magical blast?

Since even Sephiroth had been surprised to hear her talk about it, her ability it must be very rare- which probably meant nobody had ever bothered to write down a rule about it.

So Aerith gave her first surprise to the crowd, letting loose with a large orb of white-green light that sailed across the arena and struck one dog squarely in the head, sending it spinning through the air.  
  
Which meant she still had another massive killer canine racing straight at her. Seemed like it was time to do some “real” magic.   
  
Aerith had never used materia before, and was sure that dog would be ripping her to pieces if her first spell missed. Which meant it was time to think more creatively....

“Blizzard!” Rather than attacking the dog, she let loose with a blast of ice magic aiming at the arena’s floor.

In the blink of an eye metal was frozen over with a sheet of frost over an inch thick.

All four of the dog’s legs began to flail about wildly as even its wicked-looking claws weren’t long enough to let it find purchase.  
  
Aerith lazily stepped to the side and the dog went sliding right past her, and kept right on sliding until it slammed into an arena wall.

Before she had time to congratulate herself for quick thinking, she heard the snarl of the first dog again, it seemed that her staff’s magic hadn’t taken it completely out of the fight.  
  
She turned to face the charging dog, wondering if she should stick to ice or try something different.  
  
Whatever choice she made, she’d have to make it fast because….

Then there was a high pitched whistle, and the charging dog abruptly slid itself to a stop and turned around.  
  
Looking over in the whistle’s direction she saw that the Beastmaster was on the floor of the arena, his arms bound together by a zip tie while Sephiroth held the whistle to his lips.

Just like that, the middle section of the arena began to part and a platform rose upwards with the tournaments’ announcers on board.

“We warned you it might be quick folks!”  
  
“But none of us expected just how quick!”  
  
“That match saw the previous Don Corneo Cup record for fastest victory shattered!”  
  
“Nay, obliterated!”   
  
“It probably won’t be the only thing to end up that way tonight either! Don’t worry though, we’ll find somebody who can make Sephiroth actually work for victory...”  
  
“Even if it kills him!”  
  
“For now, just take a moment and show your adoration for General Sephiroth!”  
  
“And a local florist.”

XXX XXX XX

Since there were other people in the tournament than just the two of them, Aerith and Sephiroth were shuffled off to an utterly unremarkable waiting room. There they sat on on creaky folding chairs, waiting for their next match to begin.

“So, is this what ‘normal’ is like for you? Not competing in an underground fighting tournament, but the way people are cheering for you like the greatest thing since sliced bread?” Aerith abruptly asked him once they were seated.  
  
Sephiroth turned his eyes towards the ceiling, but that only bought him a few seconds of reprieve in the end. For some strange reason, he was unable to simply throw up a wall of icy silence and ignore the question.

"Yes." He sighed. “Yes, this exactly what my life used to be like before I left Shinra. Multitudes screaming my name, utterly enraptured by the world's most efficient butcher.”

To her credit, Aerith didn’t ask any followup questions... Which made it all the stranger that he felt a perverse itch at the back of his mind that he could only scratch by voicing another thought.

“It's a small mercy, but thanks to our last-minute enrollment, at least the Silver Elite didn’t have time to buy up all the tickets.”

“Wait, the Silver Elite? I think I’ve heard of them… weren’t they that crazy fan-club that was started when you were like… five?” Aerith interjected, her voice filled with contempt.

“Three!” Sephiroth spat in a mixture of exasperation and derision.

“Just to be clear, I was never a member.”  
  
“I never thought you were.” He assured her.

XXX XXX XXX   
  
Sephiroth and Aerith had were eventually called back to their next arena for their next match.

“Welcome back ladies and gentlemen, and let us remind you, your eyes do not deceive you!”

“Standing before you is the seemingly unstoppable Silver General who made his return to Midgar with a splash!”  
  
“And a ‘slash’ as well for that matter! Even as we speak the judges are trying to find more precise clocks to measure how fast he can defeat his foes!”  
  
“We’d tell him to slow down and give you a better show, but this isn’t about the show….”  
  
“It’s about THE CARNAGE!”  
  
“Which is exactly what you’re about to see unleashed for your entertainment!”

“Their opponents, reavers of the scrapyard, thieves and killers through and through! Too criminal for common criminals, the worst of the worst!

“Check your pockets, because they may have already robbed you blind!”

“The most contemptible sons of bitches this side of Wall Market, Beck's Badasses!”

The doors at the opposite end of the arena opened and a familiar trio emerged.

Just like that Sephiroth’s spirits lifted; and his feelings of preemptive guilt were banished by schadenfreude.

“Hey it’s those guys.” Aerith giggled.  
  
“Hey boss, it’s that silver haired guy who kicked our asses!” The chubby bandit ‘helpfully’ noted.

“And froze us in gigantic ice cubes.” The other minion chimed in.

“That’s cause he’s nothing but a low down scum suckin’ cheat. He bushwacked us before we could properly ambush him!" Beck shot right back. “So I hope you weren’t thinking that what you did to us is gonna remain a cold case!”

“I thought a cold case was what you called it when you got twenty four bottles right out of the fridge?” The fat bandit interrupted.

“No you idiot, not a cold case of beers, a _cold case_!”  
  
“What’s the difference?” The lanky one seemed to be every bit as confused as his chubby compatriot.

Before the argument could proceed any further, the doors through which the bandits had entered opened again.

Five more men strolled into the arena, each of them carrying a firearm of some kind.

They didn’t look to be any more combat trained or disciplined than Beck and his two companions, but you didn’t need a lot of training or discipline to shoot a florist.

“And who are these unscrupulous-looking gentlemen?” It seemed the announcers had noticed the ruffian’s reinforcements as well.

“It would seem that there are actually eight members of Beck's Badasses!”  
  
“Eight on two, really? Isn’t this against the rules?” Aerith protested.

“The only rule here is that there are no rules! If Corneo says it's okay, then you gotta suck it up!” Beck taunted her.

There was a playful chime and a screen on the side of the arena now depicted a cartoon caricature of Don Corneo enthusiastically holding up a sign with “OK” on it.  
  
It would seem that Wall Market’s ruler had decided to try and make this match interesting by discovering if a handful of gunmen would be able to mow down an innocent woman before Sephiroth inevitably won. The fights might not be to the death… but somehow Sephiroth doubted any of those firearms were loaded with rubber bullets.

“I’ve got enough zip ties for all of you. Don’t do anything that makes me think twice about using them.” Sephiroth warned the new arrivals, hoping his legend could accomplish a feat even his legendary skills might not quite be up to.

“The odds are overwhelmingly stacked against them!” The announcers gloated.

“This could be a real bloodbath! So I implore you, ladies and gentlemen—don't look away, or you may miss the best part!”

“The second match of the Corneo Cup's semifinals...begins now!” At the word “now” their platform began to sink back into the floor.

XXX XXX XXX  
  
Aerith had heard the sound of gunfire before, just like everyone else who grew up in Lower Midgar. What she hadn’t heard was quite so many rounds being fired off quite so nearby; there was only one event in her life that could possibly be its equal, and she was glad her memories of it were hazy enough to prevent an in-depth comparison...

The five men with guns weren’t her problem though, the three original members of Beck’s Badasses currently advancing on her with various melee weapons were.

“Not so tough without your silver haired boyfriend to do all the fighting are you girle?” The lanky subordinate one cackled.  
  
That was when Aerith realized exactly how she could beat these three without even needing to use Sephiroth’s materia. Why waste all her energy now when she could conserve it for the final round?  
  
“He’s not my boyfriend, in fact I’m not even sure that he feels philia for me, let alone eros.” Aerith answered truthfully, glad that Elmyra had insisted on her having as robust an education as you could get in Lower Midgar.  
  
“I’ll teach you to say we’re in eros!” The short member barked back as he advanced with his cutlas.  
  
“Not in ‘error’ you idiot, in eros! It means flowery romantic love.” Their leader scoffed.  
  
“I’m pretty sure that’s ludus. Eros is love so dramatic and passionate you loose control of yourself.” Aerith correct.

“That can’t be right, because Eros is the same as Cupid...” Beck grumbled, now obviously more interested in the argument than perforating Aerith’s flesh.

“You mean the little kid with the wings and the bow and arrow?” The lanky one chimed in.  
  
“That’s right. When Midgar conquered Kalm we stole all their gods and gave them new names; except for Apollo, we just call kept calling him Apollo. So why would they depict the god of dramatic passionate love as a baby?”   
  
“Because modern society chooses to whitewash and infantilize the acts of a god who intentionally caused mischief and suffering by making people fall in love against their will.” A baritone voice answered.  
  
“Thanks.” Beck accepted the new information with a polite glance back towards the one who had supplied it.  
  
He returned his attention to Aerith and managed to keep it there for a few moments before the proverbial gil coin dropped.  
  
Beck took another look back confirming what he’d seen the first time.  
  
The other five members of Becks Badasses were all currently laying on the ground their hands bound by zip ties, and an irritated General Sephiroth was standing directly behind him.

“Charlie horse!” Beck groaned before collapsing to the ground and flailing his limbs around pathetically.

“Richard goat!”

“Harry cow!”   
  
His two teammates joined him on the ground of their own volition with equally enthusiastic shows of “pain” and inability to continue fighting.  
  
XXX XXX XXX

With another victory under their belts Sephiroth and Aerith headed back to waiting room until the final match began. This time though they discovered that it was already occupied.

“No, I’m not mad at you guys; you did the best you could.” Insisted a familiar looking man as he spoke to a pair of large red and black skinned dogs.  
  
As the sound of a door opening drew his attention, Aerith abruptly noticed something different about him that she couldn’t let pass in silence.

“Didn’t you used to have only one eye?” She couldn’t help but wonder aloud.

“No, I used to be wearing an eyepatch; I leave it up to the audience to decide how many eyes I have.” The Beastmaster noted, perhaps a touch smugly.

Then he slowly brought his eyes up to meet Sephiroth’s own.  
  
“By the way… I wasn’t gonna be so crass as to ask in the ring but can I get an autograph? My kids aren’t gonna believe their daddy was lucky enough to get his ass kicked by Sephiroth himself.”  
  
The Beastmaster certainly had an interesting definition of “lucky”.  
  
When he produced a piece of pen and paper from the pockets of his outfit, Sephiroth reluctantly scrawled his name on it just to to avoid being pestered further.  
  
“Didn’t these two… almost kill somebody?” While Sephiroth didn’t worry about the animals in question, Aerith had made a point to keep her distance.

The Beastmaster chuckled, pulling the whistle he’d used in the arena out and spun it around for emphasis.

“You’ve got more to fear from your average alley mongrel than these two. They’re trained to go for restraint holds so that I can put my dagger to somebody’s throat and force them to surrender. Anyway, Kyle is a bit more than just ‘somebody’, he’s been my hype-man for close to a year now. Didn’t have a pretty enough face to be in pictures, but he sure can sell fear and terror to an audience can’t he?” The Beastmaster chuckled.  
  
Suspicion warred with outrage on Aerith’s face.

“Wait, how much of this is even real?”

“The fights are real as can be; but people don’t just come for the fights, they come to see a show, so that’s what we give ‘em. Heat fills seats, y'know?”  
  
XXX XXX XXX  
  
Once more Sephiroth and Aerith were summoned to the arena.

Once more Don Corneo’s heralds were there to further inflame the crowd’s enthusiasm.

“Ladies and gentlemen, our time together is almost over!”

“Tonight's thrilling Corneo Cup, filled with unprecedented upsets and drama, has only one match to go!”  
  
There were cries of disappointment and derision from all sides.

“We know, it’s simply heartbreaking to think that this must be the end of the road. But ladies and gentlemen, all good things must come to an end! So let's celebrate by getting so damn loud, they'll hear us up on the Plate!

“Once more, in the red corner, we have that powerhouse pair who we can always depend on to bring the thrills...”  
  
“Not to mention icy chills!”  
  
“To our arena! He’s big, he’s wearing black, and tonight he’s BACK, SEPHIROTH!”

“SEPHIROTH I LOVE YOU, MARRY ME!” One of his countless interchangeable "fans" screeched.

Sephiroth rolled his eyes, wishing he hadn’t already heard that more times than even he could count.

“Wow… I’m sorry.”

"... Thank you. It _does_ get old."

"And competing alongside him, the only woman who could match his magical might; when she's not planting flowers she's planting her foes... SIX, FEET, UNDER!”

“Give it up for, A, LO-CAL, FLOR-IST!”

“I told them what my name was; if we win the tournament, will they finally start using it?” Aerith grumbled.

“That’s right, they quashed their opposition in the quarter finals, they smashed them in the semis, but do they truly have what it takes to go all the way? Because in the blue corner, they’re going up against the five-time winners of the Corneo Cup! Murder machines with countless kills to their names!

“Along with a handful of maimings.”

“The deadly duo that takes out the trash, with a vengeance!”

“The electric executioners... Chocobo Sam's champions... Cutty and Sweepy!”

“Come on out!”  
  
The doors on the other end of the arena opened, and a pair of heavily modified Shinra “urban pacification” robots emerged.

“Guess they couldn’t find anyone human who’d dare face us.” Aerith chuckled as she sized up the two massive machines, each twice Sephiroth’s height.

Sephiroth wished he could have shared her enthusiasm. Robots had a lot of vulnerabilities, but there was no way he’d be able to intimidate them into taking it easy on Aerith. This was going to come down to raw strength and skill.  
  
“Just make sure to keep your wits about you.”

The obvious strategy was to get up close to the machine with built in canons while keeping his distance from the one possessing a pair of whirling buzzsaw arms, but they might have hidden secondary weapons designed for exactly that situation.

“Who will walk away with the one million gil prize!? Get ready for a fight guaranteed to go down in history!”

“The final match of the Corneo Cup...begins now!”

The announcers sank into the floor and the battle began.

Rockets built into the robots’ feet fired and they slid across the ground toward Sephiroth and Aerith with the deceptive ‘unmoving’ speed of flowing lava.

A spinning blade larger than Sephiroth's torso plunged towards him, but the blow never landed. He circled around the descending arm and severed it at the elbow with a single upward stroke of Masamune, leaving him well out of reach of the sidesweep from the truncated limb.  
  
A living creature would likely have succumbed to shock at that point, but the modified sweeper simply turned and thrust its other saw-tipped limb at him. A textbook downward chop severed that limb, as well, with a slight flick of Masamune sending the still-spinning sawblade skittering away across the ground.

At which point Cutty zoomed backwards, while its grill began to glow ominously red.  
  
Deprived of its two main weapons, the machine let loose with a continuous blast of flame from the very center of its body.

Sephiroth didn’t bother to dodge; instead, he countered with a howling cascade of ice borne on freezing winds.

The two opposing elements collided in a billowing cloud of steam and fog. Whatever mechanical process fueled Cutty’s flames ran out well before Sephiroth’s magic did; while its flames guttered and died, Sephiroth’s mystical blizzard continued, sweeping over the robot and bringing it to a hoarfrosted halt.

A single slash later, two chunks of frozen metal dropped to the floor. Sephiroth couldn’t intimidate machines, but he had no reservations about destroying them.  
  
That was when he heard the sound of cannons firing. As Sephiroth spun around he reminded himself that it was a promising sound, Sweepy wouldn’t be shooting if Aerith was already dead. She’d already held out this long, so she could do it another five seconds.  
  
He felt a ghost of a grin tug at his mouth when he registered exactly what the machine was unloading on: Sweepy's ammunition hoppers were fruitlessly emptying into a rock wall that had to be least a foot thick. The arena may have lacked any useful cover against gunfire, but that hadn't stopped Aerith from making her own.  
  
To his surprise Aerith wasn’t looking at the robot currently shooting at her, or at least at the rock wall between her and said robot. Instead, she caught his gaze long enough to wink at him before slamming her staff into the ground. "Quakara!"

Impossibly tiny ripples that Sephiroth could “feel” more than see raced out from where her staff had struck. They crossed the distance between her and the robot, at which point a gigantic stalagmite erupted from the floor impaling Sweepy with enough force to lift it clear off the ground.  
  
The murderous machine’s weapons abruptly fell silent as it produced a massive shower of sparks and smoke.  
  
Then it exploded.

“And with that marvelous bit of magic our former champions are cast down from their throne! Taking their place as the undisputed masters of mayhem are our brand new twin titans of the tussle, SEPHIROTH AND AERITH!”  
  
Sephiroth wondered if he should congratulate the florist on having gotten her wish.

XXX XXX XXX

The pair had been told to return to the waiting room and that their sponsor would come to see them once she was done collecting their winnings.

Sephiroth was just glad to have been able to get through the tournament without killing anyone. While he was taking a moment to quietly bask in their victory, Aerith was babbling happily. Clearly the florist was flush with the post victory euphoria he’d seen many first time combatants experience.

“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. But...you two still have one fight left.” Announced Madam M as she entered the waiting room.  
  
“ _ **What.**_ ”  
  
Sephiroth had taken the inclusion of trained beasts, additional fighters, and killer robots in stride. This, however was cheating so blatant that even he found it objectionable.

“But we already won!” Unsurprisingly, Aerith shared his dim view of the ruling.  
  
“Oh yes, you won. You won, and you won, and you won. Do you know the best way for the house to make money on betting?” Madam M abruptly inquired.

“Take a percentage of all bets?” Sephiroth guessed.

"Fudge the numbers and charge a processing fee so a winning bet doesn't pay out any more than it puts up?" Aerith added helpfully.

“Close, but not quite. This is the best way for the house to make money.” Madam M countered as she handed over a betting slip to Sephiroth.

It was a 100 gil bet that Sephiroth and Aerith would defeat Cutty and Sweepy. Its payout was 101 gil.

Sephiroth looked at the ticket and then back at Madam M, not sure what she was getting at.  
  
“So where’s the profit?”

“People need to turn their tickets in to get their winnings. Given how many bets were placed on you before the final match, there should have been a flood of people turning in winning tickets. Instead, there was only a trickle. It seems many of our gamblers have decided that they’d be happier keeping their tickets, and letting the house keep their wager.”  
  
“That’s, that’s...” Aerith began to work herself up into a fine fury at the idea that people might bet, win, and yet still leave with lighter pockets.

“That’s their choice. It’s not our fault if people prefer a 100 gil souvenir that proves they saw Sephiroth fight over 101 gil of the house’s money. Wall Market is built on the principle that a good transaction leaves everyone happy.

So, as you might be able to guess, that greedy scum-sucking piece of shit festering asshole who runs the tournament has decided to extend it an extra round!” Madam M began to stomp her feet and briefly looked tempted to hurl her fan clear across the room.

“So, in return for fighting an additional round we’ll be getting?” Sephiroth pressed, tapping a foot on the floor in irritation.  
  
“A favor from me, something beyond the dress. Corneo makes the rules down here, so the rest of us just have to try and make the best of it.”

Sephiroth sighed heavily; he’d been able to handle everything this tournament had thrown at him so far. How much worse could one more round really be?

XXX XXX XXX  
  
It was a _**house**_.

Don Corneo expected Sephiroth and Aerith to fight a house.

General Sephiroth was now expected to fight a living house in front of a cheering crowd of onlookers so that a woman he barely knew would be able to afford a dress... He prided himself on being a fast learner, but the damndest part was that he couldn't figure _where he'd gone wrong._

End Chapter.  
  
AN: We were originally going to have Sephiroth and Aerith just enter through the lobby like in the remake, but my editor/co-writer Fenrir reminded me that we’re trying to have everyone act just a little bit smart in this story. So, instead they have a separate entrance for the “talent” to keep them from possibly getting mobbed by fans.

According to Crisis Core the Silver Elite club was started “twenty years” ago, which given when the game takes place means Sephiroth would have been roughly three years at the time. Granted, said club was most likely started by Hojo, so draw your own conclusions. Suffice to say, Sephiroth is probably very thankful that he has superhuman speed, it makes it easier to outrun screaming groupies.

The unredeemed winning tickets with Sephiroth’s name on them are intended to be a reference to similar tickets that resulted from the 1973 Belmont Stakes, where over 5,000 people bet that Secretariat would win, but never actually bothered to cash their winning tickets, instead keeping them as souvenirs/proof of what they’d seen. Which to be fair, was a victory of Sephirothic proportions.

Also, here’s a variation of the Beck and friend’s interaction that my Fenrir felt was a little too reliant upon real world historical figures to work, but I liked enough to include as an omake…

“ _That was a violation of the Marquees of Queensberry Rules, and he knows it!” The bandit leader further accused Sephiroth._

“ _Wasn’t he that guy who liked to beat people up in his bedroom?” The fat bandit interrupted._

_“No you idiot, that’s was Marques De Sade!”  
  
“Why are so many fancy people named ‘Markus’? It’s a stupid name!”_

Oh, also before you go, if you haven’t already please check out Belderiver’s story Wars Waged In Us which you can find here https://archiveofourown.org/works/24984004/chapters/60487456, it makes a lovely unintentional foil to Twilight Perfected, being an Aeriseph story that involves a version of Sephiroth who winds up siding with Avalanche, but for completely different reasons…. _  
_


	12. I've got high heel stilettos and I'm kicking in doors and kissing your ass ain't what my lipstick's for...

General Sephiroth had faced and defeated ninjas, samurai, summons, monsters, robots, dragons, public safety personnel, SOLDIERs, and now a _**house**_.

He was just glad that Genesis wasn’t around to deliver some pithy quip or worse yet, an ancient prophecy from Loveless. Sephiroth was fairly sure he’d heard the entire piece recited to him enough times to have memorized it, but knowing his luck, there was probably some stanza nested in its apocrypha about the brave hero doing battle with a residential evil.  
  
He could only hope that he was able to accomplish this mission without Aerith telling Tifa about the fight, or at the very least without Tifa telling Kadaj about it; Kadaj's complete ignorance of the event was his only hope for not having to recount it in second-by-second detail.

For the moment, Sephiroth was back in the relative safety of Madame M’s massage parlor while she finished negotiating with a small army of tailors, aesthetiscians, and, for all he knew, caterers.

“Sephiroth… I have an idea.” Aerith announced.

She’d been kind enough to seat herself at the exact opposite side of the parlor’s sole couch so that he could have his personal space. He was thankful for that, but he suspected he would not be for whatever idea had just occurred to her.  
  
“Tifa will be one possible bride for Don Corneo, and I’m going to be the second. He likes to have three girls though, so all this is going to be for nothing if he picks the third girl.”  
  
“…” He could see where this was going, but had no intention of encouraging her.  
  
“So what if you… were that third girl?”  
  
“….” Sephiroth stood firm.  
  
“Come on Sephiroth, did my silver knight really come all this way just to leave me on my own just when things are getting truly dangerous? Besides, you already fought a house, is this really so much to ask?”  
  
“…..” He wasn’t saying a word until she gave up on this absurd notion.

“Your dress has arrived.” Madam M announced as she entered the store.  
  
That news only made Aerith’s smile grow broader.

“So, Madam M, I had this crazy idea that I thought you could help me with...” Having failed to convince Sephiroth, Aerith now turned her attention to the masseuse.  
  
“I think you’re crazy enough already just for wanting to be in a room with Don Corneo.”

“Since you owe me and Sephiroth a favor, do you think that we could possibly get us an extra dress, and maybe a few other things? Do you think we could find something fancy in Sephiroth’s size?”

“No.”  
  
Madame M put her foot down without a moment’s hesitation, and Sephiroth was tempted to announce that the favor she owed him was now paid in full.

“But maybe if we….” Aerith pleaded.  
  
“No! Being part of the Trio means that I know Don Corneo’s tastes, and one of said tastes is that he’s very particular about his bride’s height. He likes to be able to look them in the eye, or failing that the breasts. Even if I did everything I could possibly do, Don Corneo would need a step ladder.”  
  
Aerith snapped her fingers in displeasure.

“Well there goes that plan… but maybe instead we could….”  
  
“Maybe you should join me in the backroom so we can start getting you ready? We still have to take care of fitting, adjustments, makeup…” Madame M cut her off again.

XXX XXX XXX  
  
It was a good dress, all things considered.  
  
Sephiroth wasn’t sure it was worth having to fight a house for, but it was a good dress.

Lots of artfully arranged long frills, and the red color accentuated her green eyes. A plunging neckline was emphasized by a golden necklace and touches of black fabric. Her hair was now tied back by a crimson ribbon with interwoven ruby flowers, with the entire outfit rounded out by a pair of silver heels.

“So, what do you think?”

What did she expect him to say?

“The dress suits you. I can make sure Madame M lets you keep it if you want me to.”

“Thanks, though now that I’m actually wearing it it… I can’t stop thinking about how gaudy and impractical it is.” Aerith admitted.

For some reason he couldn’t quite describe Sephiroth felt a slight upward twitch in his lips.  
  
“You were correct that going in alone leaves you needlessly exposed; I have a solution. I’ll get your original dress, boots and staff from Madame M, then if you need to get my help, just whistle, as loud as you can. Do you know how to whistle?”  
“Of course.” Aerith hesitated a moment. "Are you sure you'll hear me from outside the mansion?"

"I'll hear."

XXX XXX XXX

Honestly, Aerith wasn’t all that worried; she felt like a million gil and was wearing a dress that probably really _had_ cost almost that much. She might not have her staff, her bangles, or any materia, but she was pretty sure she could handle anything Don Corneo or his goons threw at her.  
  
XXX XXX XXX

An uncertain amount of time later, Aerith was forced to admit that being being lured into an isolated room and then gassed was not something she could 'handle'.  
  
Indeed, there were very few situations that involved waking up in what could only be described as “a dungeon” which would justify a person cackling with glee over how their plan was going perfectly.

On the other hand, she was waking up, she still had her dress on, and she hadn’t been chained to anything, so Don Corneo probably wasn’t actually aware of her plan… he just had really disgusting ideas about what constituted a good first date.

As Aerith’s head began to feel less like it was stuffed full of cotton and her eyes cleared, she tried to figure out exactly how much trouble she was in.

The first thing she noticed was that she wasn’t the only occupant of the dungeon.

“Hey, can you hear me?” The other woman called out to her.

Even though she was standing only a few feet away from her, Aerith found herself struggling to get a clear image of her dungeonmate. As the fog in her head dissipated, though, details gradually came into focus: brunette, mahogany eyes, black yukata….

“Tifa… Lockhart?” Aerith gasped out awkwardly; her mouth felt like it was full of marbles.  
  
“Uhh… yes? How do you know my name?” Tifa rather reasonably replied.

“I’ve been working with a friend of yours: tall, silver hair, green eyes, no sense of humor….”

“I can guess.” Tifa cut her off before she needed to say anymore, her lips twitching upwards in a slight smile.  
  
“So he’s okay?” Another voice abruptly joined the conversation.  
  
Aerith blinked a few more times and managed to rise to her feet.  
  
Turning her head in the other voice’s direction she beheld a wiry girl with silver hair and green eyes; she might not have been as tall as Sephiroth, but there could be no doubt she was the tallest of three.  
  
She was wearing a sleek black dress with silver accents that seemed to be cut in exactly the right style to compliment her slender figure by suggesting at curves rather than revealing them.

All of those facts fell by the wayside a moment later though when Aerith noticed something else….

The silver haired girl had a yellow flower in her hair.

The _exact_ _same_ yellow flower that she’d given to Sephiroth when they’d first met in Sector One.

“Wait a moment… you’re Sephiroth’s brother!” Aerith gasped in shock.

“Yeah, I’m Kadaj….” He pouted awkwardly a twisting a strand of silver hair in a black opera glove. “What gave it away?”

“I sold him that flower; when I asked him about what he’d done with it, he told me he gave it to his brother.”

Kadaj’s pout melted into an exultant grin as he rejoiced with an energetic elbow pump.

“So you only realized because of stuff completely outside my control. Yes, _n_ _ailed it_!”

“Wow, Tifa we had the exact same idea! Sephiroth was a total stick in the mud about it though.” Aerith couldn’t help but giggle as she sized up Kadaj.  
  
“Actually… it was Kadaj’s idea.” Tifa admitted, blushing slightly.

“I didn’t want Tifa putting herself in danger while I sat around and did nothing!” Kadaj interjected with a smile.

Sephiroth _had_ said that his younger brother was a romantic...

“I’d really like to get to know both of you better, but we also have to figure out a way to get out of here. Sephiroth said that if I got in trouble I should whistle really loudly, but down here I’m not sure even _he_ would be able to hear.” Aerith sighed looking at how thick the walls were… and wishing she also didn’t notice the manacles and… other things cluttering up the room.

“We can’t leave just yet.”  
  
“Yeah, we’re on an important mission for…. important people.” Kadaj’s vainly tried to dance around the topic.

“You’re both in Avalanche.” Sometimes the only way to break the ice was with a sledgehammer.  
  
Kadaj and Tifa’s eyes both instantly decided that they had to be somewhere other than meeting Aerith’s gaze.  
  
When they ran out of other things to look at Kadaj’s eye were sullen with shame while Tifa’s were pointedly accusatory.

“What makes you say that?”  
  
“I live in Sector Five. There were a lot of broadcasts of your attack on the reactor.”

Yet again two sets of eyes found the room’s disturbing implements irresistibly interesting.

“ _Oh_ , that, right.” Tifa coughed after finishing another inspection of the room.

Strangely, none of the broadcasts had actually included so much as a flicker of silver hair, but then, she already knew Sephiroth had been there...

“Well since Sephiroth already trusts you, and he’s not exactly a soft sell, I suppose there’s no harm in filling you in.

“After the Sector Five reactor job, some guys came around looking for a friend of mine with only one arm.”

“Who Tifa beat the crap out of. Then they bought everyone a round of drinks. I got lemonade!”

“I asked some questions and found out they were working for Don Corneo. They wouldn’t tell me why he was so interested, though.” Tifa continued, ignoring the interruption.

“Well I mean, he’s a crime lord, and you’re…. sorta kinda criminals; maybe he thought you’d want to buy something illegal from him?”  
  
“Trade negotiations don’t start with his goons leaning on my customers. Which is why we decided that Avalanche needs to know exactly why Don Corneo is so interested in us all of a sudden. I figured that the best way to do it would be to ask him… just another night of getting leered at for tips, y'know?

“As pretty as Tifa is though, she’s only one woman, so I offered to help. Besides, I'd never ridden in a carriage before!”

Aerith grinned back at him.  
  
“This is perfect, then! If we're all in on it, he literally _has_ to pick one of us!”

Tifa began to chew on her lip as she looked Aerith up and down again.

“Avalanche is here to help the people of Midgar, not to exploit them like Shinra. I’m not sure I can really accept...”  
  
“If you’re trying to give me the brushoff, Sephiroth already tried it, about half a dozen times, I’m still here.” Aerith cut her off.

“Welcome to Avalanche!” Kadaj congratulated her with a hug that was so exuberant Aerith could feel her ribs protesting at the pressure and lungs complaining from lack of air.

For all their visual similarities, she could see very little of the brothers in each other. For that matter, Sephiroth had been in the public eye for years; why had his brother never been so much as mentioned?

“That, that might be taking it a bit too far.” Aerith blushed as she struggled to catch her breath once Kadaj’s crushing embrace finally concluded.

“I’m going to help you guy get out of this mess, find out what Don Corneo wants with Avalanche, and then I can finally head home without feeling like I didn’t do my part.”  
  
Aerith was too involved in this particular mess to back out now, but that didn’t mean she planned to spend the rest of her life blowing up mako reactors.

To her surprise Tifa took this news with good cheer, gently resting a hand on Aerith’s shoulder.  
  
“That’s fine, there are lots of people out there who support Avalanche in countless different small ways, some people leave supplies at our dead drops, others report on Shinra shifts schedules or security passwords, not everyone has to fight on the front-lines.”

“Though we’re totally gonna take the fight straight to Don Corneo if he tries to gas us again!”

It made Aerith feel a little bit better to know that she hadn’t been the only one who’d fallen for that particular trick.

“Now ladies, listen up." A voice called to them from above. "I'm sure you're still feeling a bit woozy, but tonight's audition's about to begin. Head out the door to the left and up the stairs. Come on ladies, let's hustle.”  
  
It was show time.  
  
XXX XXX XXX  
  
Having grown up in Lower, Midgar Aerith knew about Don Corneo, the unofficial “king” of Wall Market, but she hadn’t ever seen him in person before. She certainly hadn't expected the cartoon version of him displayed during the Corneo Cup to be such a spot on depiction. Don Corneo was indeed plump, squat, and bald except for a curl of orange blond hair.

He had the sort of eyes that Aerith associated with men her mother had told her to keep away from, his default expression an unseemly leer.

“Nice. Very nice! Whichever one shall I pick?” His voice was packed with more ooze than whatever product he used to style his hair.  
  
Aerith kept her hands folded neatly together and looked straight ahead while keeping her expression passive, she hadn’t come this far just to give the game away.

While his hands never quite actually touched her dress, the way they reached out towards her forced Aerith to fight back a series of repulsed shivers.  
  
“My, my, such a slender thing you are, have you been eating enough?” Ironic that Don Corneo should be worried about Aerith taking in enough calories, because at that moment she felt sorely tempted to violently expel her last meal.

Apparently satisfied with bringing her to the edge of nausea without pushing her over, he now turned his lecherous gaze on Tifa.  
  
“Oh maybe this elegant and refined creature? Is there any chance you’re the descendant of nobility, my dear?” Don Corneo cooed.  
  
“Well, my father was a mayor.” Tifa admitted reluctantly.  
  
“I knew it! There simply had to be vast tracks of land running in your family!”

Then he turned to Kadaj.  
  
“Though how could I refuse this statuesque beauty in silver whose hair sparkles like freshly minted coins?” Don Corneo cackled to himself.  
  
“Who to choose, who to choose, who to choose, who to choose? Truly my faithful followers have presented me with an embarrassment of riches! If the dignified duchess and my silver nightingale would join me in my most intimate quarters perhaps I can finally reach a proper conclusion. Kotch, Scotch, you and the other boys can amuse yourselves with the scarlet lady.” He commanded imperiously.

Before Aerith could even sort out how to feel about that news each of Don Corneo’s minions grabbed one of her shoulders and dragged her from the room.

XXX XXX XXX

That was how Aerith found herself surrounded by four men who were alternating between hooting, hollering and debating which one of them would get to “have fun” with her first.

In short, a certain florist had reached the limit of exactly how much objectification she was going to be putting up with tonight.

“Would you boys like a preview of what you can expect?” Aerith did her best approximation of a femme fatale’s seductive purr.  
  
It wasn’t an especially good impression, but it could hold the attention of a handful of lowlifes for five seconds.

That was all the time she needed to produce the loudest most high pitched whistle of her life.

“The hell are you doing bitch? That hurt my ears!” Scotch complained.  
  
With a piercing HISS-CRACK, the wall exploded inward in a shower of frosted concrete shards.

“Mine, too.” Announced a dispassionate baritone.

The moment Scotch’s eyes flicked away from her, Aerith kicked him as hard as she could. Before he even got a chance to cry out in pain, she started looking for a proper weapon. As luck would have it have it, the first thing to hand was a folding chair. She slammed it down over the lackey's head and then turned to see how Sephiroth was doing.

In the time it had taken her to deal with Scotch, Sephiroth defeated two of the thugs, but it seemed like in the process one of them must have gotten a lucky shot in. She couldn't think of any other reason for why he was just standing there, staring at her like he'd had the wind knocked out of him.

Then she saw the last one coming up behind him with a knife.

"Sephiroth, behind y..." She began to warn him.

She needn't have bothered.

It was like watching a film with frames missing; Sephiroth's elbow collided with the thug's face without seeming to cross the intervening space. He blinked once, slowly, after the man hit the floor.

"Where did they get you?" Aerith wondered if Sephiroth might be in need of healing.  
  
"No..." Sephiroth responded, shaking his head muzzily. "I'm fine," he clarified a moment later, in something closer to his normal clipped tones. “Are you hurt?”  
  
“No, I’m good also.”  
  
There was another long awkward pause.  
  
One of Don Corneo’s men groaned.

Sephiroth literally leaped on the opportunity, pouncing on the gangster like a cat on an injured mouse, flipping him over and binding first his wrists and then his ankles with a pair of zip ties.

“Do you want your normal dress back?”  
  
“Yes.” Aerith staggered back a step as she caught the bundle.

“Do you want me to leave the room? I can ice over all the entrances to make sure you’re not interrupted.” He offered awkwardly.

“No, that’s fine; if there’s one nice thing about this creepy place its that you can always find a spot to change.”  
  
She wasn’t quite sure what the original intention behind setting up so many Wutain folding screens was, but they did provide enough privacy for her needs.  
  
When she came out from behind the screen, she found Sephiroth had kept busy by affixing zip ties to the limbs of the other unconscious thugs.

“Why are you alone in here? I thought that Don Corneo was going to select one bride from three candidates, do we need to go find Tifa or the other woman?”

“There isn’t another woman in danger, Don Corneo just decided that tonight he needed to have a runoff with two of his prospective brides.” Aerith huffed.  


“So you're saying, when it comes to Midgar's most famous degenerate... you're just not what he's looking for?”

Aerith paused for a moment.

“I guess that is what I’m saying.” She admitted, feeling her spirits lift slightly.  
  
“If it helps, I’m sure at least one man in the room found seeing you in that dress, holding that chair, an absolutely stunning experience.”

“Sephiroth, was that a joke?” Aerith began to wonder if maybe she was hallucinating; she _had_ inhaled a lot of knockout gas fairly recently...

XXX XXX XXX  
  
Sephiroth strode into Don Corneo’s private room with his usual air of unflappable command.  
  
He was promptly “flapped” by the sight of his brother in a dress with a knee planted firmly on Don Corneo’s back pinning him to the bed.

“Kadaaajjjjj...” Sephiroth awkwardly drew out the name, uncertain what else he could say.  
  
“Tifa, can you take over for me?” Kadaj called out to Seventh Heaven’s owner, who was also still dressed for her 'interview'.

Tifa crawled onto the bed and Kadaj promptly “tagged out” with her before bouncing off the bed and jogging out of the room while the bar-owner got to work keeping the “ruler” of Wallmarket immobilized.  
  
“Yep, just like Andrea said, he got somebody to hide our clothes for us!” His voiced carried back into the room.  
  
Before long he zoomed back into the room dressed in his normal black outfit and headed for Sephiroth’s chest like a very affectionate heat seeking missile.

“It’s great to see that you’re okay!” Kadaj cried out as he hugged Sephiroth. “I mean Aerith told me you were, but still, it’s good to see you’re okay in person!”

“This raises many question.” Don Corneo coughed from his undignified position on the bed.  
  
“Too bad, since we’re gonna be the ones asking them tonight.” Tifa cut him off.

Once Kadaj was done with his hug, he “tagged in” and allowed Tifa a chance to change back into her normal outfit.  
  
With that done, the Avalanche trio plus local florist could finally get down to business.  
  
“So, I heard that you were interested in a man with a gun for an arm….” Tifa began.

“Huh? Dunno what you're talking about.”  
  
“Kadaj, are you leaning on his back hard?”  
  
“I could be leaning harder.”  
  
“Do it.” Sephiroth, Tifa, and Aerith chorused.

A few moments later Don Corneo squealed in discomfort.  
  
“What’s the matter? I thought you were looking forward to things getting frisky between us.” Tifa taunted. “So, I heard that you were interested in a man with a gun for an arm...”  
  
“They paid me to find him!”  
  
“Good boy, you’re learning. Now, how about you stop hiding behind pronouns, and tell us exactly who ‘they’ are?”

“They’ll kill me if I tell you!”  
  
“I guess that does make them scarier than us, I mean we’ve done all this without killing anybody yet.” Aerith’s voice was maliciously whimsical.  
  
“I wouldn’t want to break that streak, so instead, maybe I’ll just, I don’t know… rip em off?” She held up an open hand and, under a grin with more teeth than mirth, slowly and deliberately clenched it into a fist.

“It was Public Safety! Heidegger! It was Heidegger!” Don Corneo instantly babbled.

“Why would that overdecorated ironmonger sub-contract his work to you?” Sephiroth scoffed.

“He needed to know what sector Avalanche was based out of.”  
  
“Because…?” Tifa let the word dangle  
  
“Have a heart!” Don Corneo pleaded.

“You know, you really shouldn’t be taking such big risks…. I mean, I’m just a local florist, but they’re all hardened terrorists. So if you’re making me angry right now, imagine how they must feel?”  
  
“The correct answer is, ‘furious enough to stomp on whatever left of your junk after she’s done’.” Tifa clarified.

“He needed to know what sector Avalanche’s base was in… because that way Shinra can drop the Plate on it!”

Silence.

“We need to get out of here.” Sephiroth ordered.

Kadaj leapt off of Don Corneo’s back and headed towards the door.

“Funny, I was thinking the same thing.” Don Corneo chuckled to himself.  
  
Before even Sephiroth could react, Corneo reached out and yanked of the bedposts.

A massive trap door swung open and all four of them plunged downward.

XXX XXX XXX

Reeve retreated to the safety of his office.

Except, his office didn’t feel safe anymore.

Previously, when he’d closed the door behind him, it was as if he was shutting out all of Shinra’s insanity. It allowed him to focus in peace on numbers and spreadsheets that always seemed sane, so long as he could trick himself into not thinking about what they actually represented.  
  
Now… now it felt like the walls were closing in on him, crushing him…. crushing him... just like the people of Sector Seven...

“Something bothering you sir?” His secretary had been in the room when Reeve first entered, but he’d been too busy having a minor panic attack to notice.

“Ms. Pans, please leave.” Reeve requested, his tone polite and devoid of emotion.

She’d been with him for long enough to realized that for him, this was the equivalent of screaming expletives at the top of his lungs while swinging his pants over his head.

She departed from the room with all possible haste.  
  
Reeve brought up a new spreadsheet.

What could Midgar expect if Shinra actually carried out “Operation Damocles” successfully?

Projected loss of life in Sector Seven of Upper Midgar: >10,000 deaths.

Projected loss of life in the Sector Seven Slums: >50,000 deaths.

Projected cost of repairs: >10,000,000,000 gil.

Projected terrorists killed: <10.

Reeve stared at the spreadsheet until he could feel his eyes starting to water.

Then he turned to the coffee mug sitting on his desk.

“be crazy, it helps.”  
  
He turned back to his spreadsheet.  
  
“The secret to good business organization is that all employees understand there comes a time when they must be willing to lead, follow, or get out of the way...” Reeve repeated the mantra aloud, hoping it would help steady his mind.  
  
Lead, follow, or get out of the way?  
  
"Be crazy, it helps..."

XXX XXX XXX

Aerith slowly shook her eyes open. While she liked helping people, she really had to find a way to stop waking up with a headache and no idea where she was or how much time had passed while she’d been unconscious.  
  
“Hey, are you okay? I can try out this new healing materia Tifa got for me, if you need it!” Kadaj’s voice came from somewhere nearby.  
  
Aerith shook her head, then took a moment and shook both of her arms, then both of her legs. Everything hurt, but the pain was dull and throbbing, that meant nothing was broken, right?  
  
“I think I’m okay...” Aerith tried to put him at ease.  
  
As her vision cleared she became certain that wherever she was, it wasn’t the dungeon she’d wound up in after being gassed. The floor was made of concrete rather than brick, and it was more faint green than black.  
  
Also there was the smell.  
  
“What is that…?” Aerith gasped, making sure to breath only through her mouth.

“I think it was meant to kill us.” Sephiroth answered.  
  
Aerith turned in the direction of his voice.  
  
He was leaning against the decapitated head of some horned monstrosity. The rest of its massive carcass lay nearby, marred by deep gashes and leaking some sort of unwholesome emerald fluid.

“That’s on brand; Don Corneo certainly seems like the kind of guy who thinks size is all that matters.” Aerith giggled.

Tifa snickered approvingly as she shook some of same fluid from her gloves.

“So, where exactly are we?” Aerith had a sinking feeling she already knew the answer.  
  
“The Sector Six sewer system. Ironically, that suits our needs well enough; we should be able to get back to Sector Seven without having to worry about the wall.”  
  
“Then once we’re back in Sector Seven, we’ll stop Shinra from dropping the plate!” Kadaj spoke as if no other outcome was possible.

“Ready for one more adventure?” Tifa gestured towards the only obvious exit from the room.

“You three are a bad influence on this pure naive florist.”  
  


XXX XXX XXX

“Why is this place so twisty turny? It’s like Shinra can’t even design a sewer system without making it shittier than it needs to be!” Tifa moaned in exasperation as the group came to another dead end, leaving them with no choice but to double back.

“You… you have a lot of friends in Sector Seven don’t you?” Even though they’d only recently met, Aerith could tell that something other than architectural design choices was at the root of Tifa’s rage.

 _ **Crack!**_  
  
Tifa's punch filled the air with dust and flecks of shattered brick.  
  
“Honestly, not that many friends, but I know lots of people who don’t deserve to be murdered because of what we’re doing. If I had to narrow it down, I can’t stop thinking about one innocent girl who's already lost her home to Shinra once. I won’t let it happen to her a second time.” As Tifa spoke, Aerith noticed flecks of mako in her eyes flaring green, the intensity of the bartender's emotions tinting her mahogany eyes hazel.

“Maybe you should try and let it go for just a few moments? Try thinking about something that makes you happy instead. After saving Sector Seven you’re gonna…?” Aerith prompted.

“Tie president Shinra up, hang him from a hook and use him as my new punching bag!”

Aerith winced.

“I guess that’s a step in the right direction, but I was hoping for an answer that might not involve your fists...” She tried again.  
  
“Good point, I have been skipping leg day recently, axe kicks, crescent kicks, front kicks, side kicks, hook kicks, roundhouse kicks, instep groin kicks...” Tifa sounded more amused than angry this time, making Aerith suspect she was getting her own leg pulled.  
  
She risked a quick glance over her shoulder, but if Sephiroth found anything amusing about this exchange he’d managed to hide it by the time she laid eyes on him.

“How about something that doesn’t involve violence at all?” Aerith clarified still further.

Tifa looked around, and there was a strange flush in her face as if she was about to discuss the most embarrassing secret possible.

“I guess, if I had to pick something…. it might be kind of nice to go shopping in Upper Midgar. Since I’d be in the area anyway...” She reluctantly admitted.

Aerith planted a reassuring hand on the other woman’s shoulder.  
  
“Now you’re getting into the spirit! What would you want to buy?” In the back of her mind the florist braced herself for an answer straight out of the anarchist’s cookbook.

“Decorations, coasters, stuff for my bar basically. Seventh Heaven isn’t much to look at, and a new coat of paint won’t change that, but it’s mine.”

“I know a Church in Sector Five that could use a little remodeling as well, especially since there’s now a Sephiroth shaped hole in the roof; would it be okay if I joined you?” Aerith encouraged her.  
  
“Sure thing it’s a date!” Tifa giggled, then she risked a glance behind her as well before lowering her voice.  
  
“Kadaj can carry all of our stuff.”  
  
“No, Sephiroth will, he’ll be our pack chocobo!”

Tifa’s eyes went wide in shock and her face contorted into the awkward expression of someone desperately fighting back a fit of laughter.

“Wow. I know we met in a creepy sex dungeon so this shouldn't really be a surprise, but you are so much braver than I gave you credit for.” She eventually managed to whisper back

XXX XXX XX X

The smell was starting to get to Aerith, and didn't seem likely to improve any time soon; even though the local monsters seems mostly content to keep their distance, the terrain was doing plenty to slow them down on its own.

In this particular case “the terrain” took the shape of a “pontoon bridge” which was nothing more than sheets of metal with rusty barrels attached to it for ballasts.

A unanimous decision was quickly reached to cross it one at a time.

Sephiroth went across first, his footsteps careful and precise to the point that the water didn’t even ripple.

Kadaj’s crossing on the other hand sent the metal sheets shaking and the water splashing in all directions. Whichever way they moved he always seemed to be bending his body in time with it, his sense of balance proving to be as unshakeable as his brother’s.

Tifa’s crossing fell between their two extremes, but she managed to likewise make from one side to the other without accident.

Which just left Aerith.

Now all she had to do was get across a ‘bridge’ barely worthy of the name that she’d just seen crossed by three people who all had a mako glow in their eyes.

Easy….

One foot in front of the other. All she had to do was keep putting one foot in front of the other, and if she felt unsteady she’d pause for a moment to rebalance herself.  
  
On the other side of the bridge Tifa and Kadaj were eagerly cheering her on, the former standing by the edge and the latter crouching near it, as if ready to dive in and fish her out should she fall into the… less than sanitary fluids below.

A part of Aerith wanted to ask them to be quiet so she wasn’t quite so distracted.  
  
Then all of a sudden she felt the pontoons shift beneath her weight, just as she was putting her feet down on the third section of the bridge, it slid backward slightly. There was a sound of metal on metal, and the sound of water flowing rapidly as she felt the bridge start to sink.

“Aerith!” Cried out Tifa.  
  
“Jump!” Advised Kadaj.

There was no time to steady herself or think, only time to act on instinct. Aerith, pumped her arms, raced forward, and jumped, but the bridge was sinking even as she pushed off; she'd had to jump before she'd even reached the midpoint.  
  
She wasn't going to make it.  
  
She scrunched her eyes closed in anticipation; this was going to _suck_.

She felt a hand wrap around her wrist, and a sudden sense of movement. She opened her eyes to find that Tifa, with one hand around her wrist and the other around Kadaj's, had caught her and swung her onto the walkway before she'd even gotten her boots wet.  
  
_What are these people? What am I doing here?_

She was in over her head. It was obvious, and she'd just been convincing herself that a few fights in an underground arena meant she could keep up. No more; Aerith made a promise to herself that when finally got back to her bed, she wasn’t leaving it for a week...

XXX XXX XXX

“Here.” Sephiroth made the prediction with well-deserved confidence.

Thanks to having a few days to refresh his mental map of Midgar and adjust it for changes over the five years he'd spent in the Lifestream, it was easy for him to simply correlate their progress through the sewer system with where they’d emerge in the slums.  
  
In fact, they should be less than a block from Seventh Heaven once they finished climbing this ladder.  
  
The circular metal lid made a valiant-but-futile effort to resist a shove from Sephiroth, and they were finally someplace where he wasn’t afraid to breath through his nostrils again.

He took a deep, cleansing breath.

Well, _that_ wasn't right.

There should never have been _this much_ gunpowder in the air in Sector Seven.

Shinra’s attack had already begun.

End Chapter

  
AN: It’s time to play everyone’s favorite game… exactly how tall are these people again?  
  
Tifa’s height has varied slightly, (just not anywhere near as much as Sephiroth's) she’s basically somewhere between 5’4” and 5’6”, Aerith is 5’3” or 5’4”, and Kadaj is 5’9”. By comparison, Cloud is 5’7” or 5’8”, while I can’t find a listed height for Don Corneo but in the remake he seems to be about eye level with Cloud’s neck/chin.


End file.
